NEW YORK – Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Angela Alsobrooks are investigating whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. misled Congress about the purpose of a 2019 trip to Samoa, following documents published in August by The Associated Press and The Guardian that contradicted his testimony.
The inquiry is among a broad slate of investigations Democrats are expected to pursue after reclaiming control of the House and Senate from Republicans in the midterm elections.
Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and Alsobrooks, a Maryland Democrat, said in a letter Wednesday to Children’s Health Defense that they had opened the investigation. The nonprofit organization, known for its anti-vaccine activism, was previously led by Kennedy.
The senators requested a wide range of records concerning Kennedy’s trip to Samoa, his 2024 presidential campaign and his Senate confirmation process. They also sought communications between Children’s Health Defense and federal officials since President Donald Trump began his second term in January 2025. The lawmakers gave the organization until Dec. 4 to provide the materials.
AP and Guardian reports in August found that Kennedy had repeatedly told senators weighing his confirmation last year that his pre-outbreak visit to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines.” But a letter he sent to Samoa’s prime minister before the trip, written on Children’s Health Defense letterhead, indicated otherwise. Kennedy used the terms vaccine or vaccination eight times in the letter.
“We intend to hold Secretary Kennedy accountable for the grave harm he has caused to vulnerable children,” Wyden and Alsobrooks wrote. “We also intend to hold him accountable for any false statements made to Congress, a crime that undermines the Senate’s ability to fulfill its constitutional duties.”
The Department of Health and Human Services has continued to insist that the Samoa trip “was unrelated to vaccines.” In response to an AP inquiry in August, the agency said that “any claim or insinuation based on these letters that Secretary Kennedy lied under oath or to Congress is not only false but outright defamatory.”
Kennedy was not testifying under oath at his confirmation hearing. Knowingly providing materially false testimony to Congress is a crime that can carry a prison sentence even when the testimony is not given under oath, although such cases are rarely prosecuted.
Representatives for Children’s Health Defense and HHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.
Wyden is expected to become chair of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Kennedy’s department, when Democrats take control of Congress in January. Alsobrooks sits on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which also has oversight of the agency.
The two senators also announced Wednesday that they were opening a separate investigation into reports that a donor and former employee gave Kennedy gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars last year.
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