Senators investigate reason for RFK Jr.’s trip to Samoa after release of letter refuting his testimony

NEW YORK (AP) — Two Democratic senators are launching an investigation into whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lied to Congress about the reason for his trip to Samoa in 2019 after The Associated Press and the Guardian published documents in August refuting his testimony.

LEARN MORE: AP Report: RFK Jr. said a trip to Samoa had nothing to do with vaccines. New documents refute this

AP and Guardian reporting from August showed that while Kennedy repeatedly told senators who held the key to his confirmation last year that his visit to Samoa before a deadly measles outbreak had “nothing to do with vaccines,” a letter he sent to the Samoan prime minister before the trip showed otherwise. In the letter, Kennedy used the words vaccine or vaccination eight times.

The new investigation is part of a wide range of planned probes into the Trump administration after Democrats regained control of the House and Senate from Republicans in the midterm elections.

Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., said Wednesday in a letter to Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit group known for its anti-vaccine activism and formerly chaired by Kennedy, that they were opening an investigation.

Lawmakers asked the group for a wide range of documents related to Kennedy’s trip to Samoa, his 2024 presidential campaign and his Senate confirmation process. The letter also requested all communications between the group and federal government officials since President Donald Trump’s second term began in January 2025. Senators gave the group a Dec. 4 deadline to comply.

“We intend to hold Secretary Kennedy accountable for the grave harm he has caused to vulnerable children,” Wyden and Alsobrooks wrote in their letter. “We also intend to hold him accountable for any false statements made to Congress, a crime that undermines the Senate’s ability to carry out its constitutional functions.”

The Department of Health and Human Services maintained that the visit to Samoa “had nothing to do with vaccines.” In response to an AP investigation in August, he said that “any assertion or insinuation based on these letters that Secretary Kennedy lied under oath or to Congress is not only false but downright defamatory.”

Kennedy was not under oath during his confirmation hearing. Knowingly giving false testimony to Congress is a crime punishable by prison time whether or not the person takes the oath of office, although it is rarely prosecuted.

Spokespeople for Children’s Health Defense and HHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Kennedy’s visit to Samoa became one of the most controversial events of his career. At the time, he headed the Children’s Health Defense. Critics said the visit fueled anti-vaccine sentiment in Samoa, which later experienced a measles outbreak that killed 83 people, most of them children under 5.

In the letter reported by the AP and the Guardian, dated January 20, 2019, Kennedy addressed then-Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi and described his desire to study Samoa’s use of the MMR vaccine.

Kennedy speculated that the deaths in Samoa may have been caused by problems with different batches of vaccines. Writing on CHD letterhead, he said his team wanted to assess whether this was the case through a “detailed health IT assessment.”

He expressed his belief that it was difficult and time-consuming in most countries around the world to investigate “adverse health events associated with vaccines” and said health information systems are rarely designed to quickly study links “between diagnoses and specific vaccination events.”

The letter did not specifically address anti-vaccine activism.

While in Samoa, Kennedy met with anti-vaccine activists, including one who helped arrange the trip with a U.S. embassy employee, the AP and Guardian previously reported.

A few months later, while vaccination rates were still dangerously low, measles broke out, sickening thousands.

Public health experts have said their efforts to combat the outbreak have been hampered by anti-vaccine activists, some of whom they say were emboldened by Kennedy’s visit.

Wyden is expected to chair the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Kennedy’s health department, when Democrats take back Congress in January. Alsobrooks serves on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which also oversees the department.

The same senators announced Wednesday a separate investigation into gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars allegedly given to Kennedy last year by a donor and former employee.