A newly surfaced letter to the Samoan prime minister confirms the Health Secretary used the word "vaccine" eight times while successfully convincing the U.S. Senate that his 2019 visit to the Pacific nation was entirely unrelated to the subject.
In a sworn filing submitted to Capitol Hill on Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services defended Robert F. Kennedy Jr. against perjury allegations, arguing that eight mentions of the MMR vaccine in a single diplomatic document constitutes a period of unprecedented restraint for the cabinet official.
Lawmakers who approved his nomination signaled they would not pursue the matter, noting that the letters obtained by the Guardian and the Associated Press merely proved he lied under oath, rather than revealing any disqualifying willingness to trust the scientific method.
To suggest the Secretary perjured himself ignores the very real fact that he considers explicitly outlining a plan to study the MMR vaccine to be a completely different topic from vaccines themselves. For a man who views municipal water treatment as a hostile act, eight mentions is practically a redaction.
Sources close to leadership indicated that the caucus was perfectly comfortable with a cabinet secretary fabricating testimony on the public record, provided the denial continued to reassure supporters that he remained deeply suspicious of the agencies he now oversees.
At press time, the DOJ was reviewing a heavily sourced memo from Kennedy's legal team explaining that his 2021 book criticizing the federal pandemic response was actually a 400-page treatise on 19th-century maritime law.