Senators Open Probe Of RFK Jr. Over 2019 Samoa Vaccine Trip

Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks have opened a formal investigation into Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s 2019 trip to Samoa, saying newly surfaced documents may show he misled Congress about whether the visit was tied to vaccines.^[1]

In a letter sent Wednesday to Children's Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group Kennedy founded, the senators demanded records about his travel to Samoa, his 2024 presidential campaign, his confirmation process for a federal post, and CHD's contacts with federal officials since January 2025, setting a response deadline of December 4.^[1] They said they are examining both potential harm to Samoan children and whether Kennedy made materially false statements to Congress, a federal crime even when a witness is not under oath.^[1]

Wyden and Alsobrooks launched the probe after the Associated Press and The Guardian published a January 20, 2019 letter Kennedy wrote to Samoa's prime minister that repeatedly referenced vaccines, undercutting his recent testimony that his trip had nothing to do with vaccination issues. The letter's emergence directly contradicts Kennedy's account to senators and has intensified scrutiny because Samoa later suffered a deadly measles outbreak that killed 83 people, mostly children under five, amid low immunization rates and rising anti-vaccine sentiment.

The Senate inquiry marks a sharp turn from earlier debate that focused largely on Kennedy's role in US vaccine politics to a more pointed question of whether his activities abroad, and his explanations of them to Congress, crossed legal lines. Lawmakers are now effectively treating the 2019 Samoa episode as both a public health case study and a potential test of congressional truthfulness rules, with Kennedy's own written words to Samoan leaders now central evidence in a widening investigation.

1. PBS News