My RFK Jr. Scandal Fail

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, Cheryl Hines, at his first Senate confirmation hearing to be Health and Human Services secretary at the US Capitol on January 29. David Corn.

The saga of Olivia Nuzzi consuming the polimedia-sphere has prompted me to think about my own journalistic failing regarding Robert F. Kennedy Jr. No, I didn’t become smitten by RFK Jr. while covering the anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theory–spewing oddball. Nor did I not report what I knew about him during the confirmation process that landed this deceitful promoter of disinformation and fake science in a position to oversee our public health system. But at a critical time, I did not succeed in drawing attention to an important story about Kennedy. And that haunts me.

Allow me, dear reader, to explain.

While I was chasing several stories about Kennedy after Donald Trump tapped him to head the Department of Health and Human Services (see here and here), a source who was once close to Kennedy told me that the scion had at least twice settled cases brought against him by women who claimed he had engaged in misconduct. In one of these instances, this source said, Gloria Allred, the famous attorney, supposedly represented the woman.

When covering famous people, it is not uncommon to encounter gossip and tips about bad personal behavior, and this was not a surprising lead. A babysitter who had once worked for Kennedy had accused him of sexual assault. Her allegation had appeared in a Vanity Fair article. In a subsequent text to her, Kennedy said, “I read your description of an episode in which I touched you in an unwanted manner. I have no memory of this incident but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did or said that offended you or hurt your feelings. I never intended you any harm. If I hurt you, it was inadvertent. I feel badly for doing so.” That was not a denial.

I contacted Allred by email and asked if she had handled such a case. I noted that we could talk off the record, if she preferred. Her reply was short: “Sorry. No comment.” I tried her again. Silence.

I pursued other avenues and reached out to Kennedy intimates who might have been in a position to know of any settlements. I found no one with first-hand knowledge, and one person who would likely have been aware of such an arrangement did not respond to my many calls, texts, and emails.

While doing this, I came across an article published in the Daily Mail a few months previously in which Allred said of Trump’s Cabinet appointees, “I think all nominees should be asked, ‘Have you entered into any confidential settlement with a person who accused you of sexually inappropriate behavior? And if so, will you agree to release the person with whom you settled from the non-disclosure clause from which he or she agreed?’” Coincidence? Or did she know something specific?

As Kennedy’s confirmation hearings were beginning, I pestered Allred again, emailing her that I had just read an “interesting article” and linking to the Daily Mail piece with her highly relevant comment. This did not change her stance. She replied, “I stand by my quote in the Daily Mail article. I believe that all cabinet nominees should be asked if they have entered into settlements with women (or men) who have made allegations against the nominee involving inappropriate sexual conduct. I have no other comment unless I receive a subpoena, and even then I would have to consider what I would say.” Did that mean she had something to say? Or was this merely legal boilerplate?

As I continued to investigate, I contacted members of the two Senate committees holding hearings on Kennedy’s appointment, as well as their staffers, and I asked if they were aware of any such cases or settlements. Had anything come up during their research and preparation for the hearings? No one had any concrete information.

After the first of the two hearings, which was conducted by the Senate Finance Committee, Democrats on the panel sent Kennedy a list of written questions. It included these queries:

Yes or no, have you ever reached a settlement agreement with an individual or organization that accused you of misconduct or inappropriate behavior?

Yes or no, have you ever agreed to or been subject to a non-disclosure agreement with any individual or organization?

The following day, during the hearing held by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) raised the issue of personal misconduct with Kennedy. She referred to the former babysitter’s allegation. Kennedy denied the accusation, contradicting his response to the babysitter. Murray then asked, “Are there any other instances where you have made sexual advances toward an individual without their consent?” Kennedy replied, “No.”

Murray did not question him about any other allegations or settlements. I bugged Allred again and asked what she thought of this exchange. Her answer was terse: “That was not the question I suggested should be asked of a cabinet nominee.”

With the hearings now behind him, Kennedy replied to the long list of written questions the senators had submitted. As to the queries about reaching a settlement following an allegation of misconduct or inappropriate behavior and being a party to a non-disclosure agreement, he answered in each case with one word: “Yes.” He supplied no further explanation. The tip had been accurate.

I contacted Kennedy and asked, “Will you disclose what those agreements were? What was the misconduct? Who were the individuals or organizations that accused you? Did this involve women who accused you of personal misconduct? Will you release anyone who has an NDA with you related to any of those settlements from that NDA?” He did not respond. But Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller and MAGA advocate who was then serving as a spokesperson for Kennedy, shot back: “As a matter of policy, we don’t respond to Mother Jones.”

I thought Kennedy’s acknowledgment of these settlements—and his reluctance to explain further—was a story that warranted widespread notice. But no Democratic senator raised a fuss. Once again, I reached out to Allred. Crickets.

The senators did follow up with another written question they sent to Kennedy:

Please describe the nature of the financial settlements (including total amounts) and non-disclosure agreements reached and what these agreements involved. Please also indicate how many of these settlements and non-disclosure agreements you have signed.

RFK Jr. replied:

Twice, I have been targeted by frivolous, unfounded allegations, which I strenuously denied at the time and continue to deny. I entered into confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements to prohibit these individuals from continuing to make these allegations.

This was not a full answer. The Senate Democrats had asked for the total amounts of the settlements, and Kennedy did not provide that information. Nor did this response indicate what “misconduct or inappropriate behavior” had been alleged. He was not being forthcoming.

Once more, I returned to Allred and asked if one of these cases did indeed involve a client of hers, would that client care to challenge Kennedy’s characterization. Allred replied, “I have not stated that I have a client in this matter, but if I did have one the client would be informed about all of your requests and questions.”

It was clear: If Allred represented such a client, that woman had no interest in saying anything. Hardly a surprising circumstance. One could easily imagine the assault that would befall a person who might violate an NDA and come forward with allegations about Kennedy. Possibly my original source had been wrong about the Allred connection. Allred never confirmed to me that she had such a client. But if I had to guess...

And that was it.

What was most surprising was that Senate Democrats dropped the matter. After Kennedy refused to provide details about these cases of alleged misconduct, there were no further efforts to press him for more information. No press conferences with senators complaining that he was stonewalling them. He was off the hook. Perhaps he had been unfairly accused. Perhaps he had done something horrible. Kennedy would keep the public—and the senators who had to vote on whether to allow him to take this position of great responsibility—in the dark.

I wrote about all this (here and here), but Kennedy’s acknowledgement of these settlements received little attention elsewhere in the media. It seemed that in the second Trump era, the possibility that RFK Jr. had engaged in misconduct or inappropriate conduct did not matter. After all, Fox News commentator Pete Hegseth had been credibly accused of sexual assault, alcohol abuse, and financial mismanagement, and he had won Senate confirmation to become secretary of defense. Such transgressions were apparently not disqualifiers in Trump 2.0. The Democrats appeared to have no appetite for demanding details about possible Kennedy misdeeds, and I did not unearth any further information on these episodes.

I failed to crack the case. Kennedy was confirmed and went on to implement calamitous policies at HHS, denigrating vaccines, pulling the plug on critical scientific and medical research, and increasing the nation’s (and the world’s) vulnerability to pandemics. If the specifics of his alleged misconduct had been revealed, might that have sunk his nomination and prevented the disaster he’s wreaking? We will never know.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

Pete Hegseth, the in-over-his-head defense secretary, was in the news this week after the Washington Post reported the US military, acting on his orders, fired missiles at two survivors of a successful attack on a suspected drug boat and killed the men—a murderous act that military law experts called a war crime. Instead of somberly—I almost wrote “soberly”—confronting this serious allegation, Hegseth tweeted out an image of Franklin the Turtle, a children’s book character, on a helicopter shooting a rocket launcher at a drug supply vessel, as if this were the cover of a book called Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists. Hegseth added this comment: “For your Christmas wish list.”

Joking about serious allegations of illegal attacks and war crimes is quite crass, but it’s such a wonderful encapsulation of Trumpism. Merry Christmas, Mr. Born Again Hegseth. This is exactly what Jesus would do.

Looking for a challenge, right-wing commentator Megyn Kelly, who enthusiastically campaigned for Trump last year, tried to surpass Hegseth in awfulness:

I really do kind of not only wanna see them killed in the water, whether they're on the boat or in the water, but I'd really like to see them suffer. I would like Trump and Hegseth to make it last a long time so that they lose a limb and bleed out a little.

This was a good example of the MAGA sadism Trump encourages. Some people on the drug boats reportedly have been forced to work for the traffickers when family members have been kidnapped or threatened. And there’s the issue of mistaken strikes. The Trump administration has not provided public proof that each vessel it has blown up and all the people killed were tied to drug cartels. But let’s cheer the deaths of these people and revel in Trump’s bloodlust.

Imagine a top White House economic adviser who doesn’t know the price of gasoline. That’s what we’ve got. On Face the Nation, Kevin Hassett showed he’s quite out of touch with economic reality. When asked about inflation, he said gas has dropped below $2.00 a gallon in a lot of places. Informed that the average price is about $3.00 a gallon, he revised his remark to say it fell below $2.00 in a few states.

His first statement was wrong, and his second statement was misleading. According to AAA, the average is $3.00, and the lowest average statewide price is $2.41.

After racist Donald Trump called Somali immigrants “garbage,” Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), chimed in, "Eighty percent of the crimes being committed in the Twin Cities in Minnesota are being committed by Somalis.”

That’s a helluva high percentage. I went looking for that stat...and couldn’t find it, not through internet searches or consultations with AI chatbots. In fact, Perplexity AI provided a good summation of responses I received from other AI services:

There is no reliable statistic for “what percent of crimes in the Twin Cities are caused by Somalis.” Official crime data for Minneapolis–St. Paul and Minnesota are reported mostly by race (e.g., Black, White) and sometimes age and gender, not by ethnicity or national origin (e.g., “Somali”). Because of this, no reputable source can give a credible percentage, and precise claims (like “most” or “80%”) are not supported by official data.

No reputable source can provide an accurate percentage, but nothing stops a member of Congress from issuing a racist and bigoted comment.

Dear-Leader-itis is at epidemic levels in Trump World. When Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) was asked about Trump’s recent medical exam, he replied, “I’ll work 100-110 hours a week. He outworks me. He’s the first person I’ve ever known that works harder than I do. He runs around that golf course...He’s in incredible shape right now. And you talk about sharp! He’s playing four-dimensional chess.”

Perhaps Marshall missed this story reporting Trump’s truncated work schedule of late or this shot of Trump at the Cabinet meeting he hosted this week:

There were more signs of the Dear-Leader-itis plague at the Cabinet session. With Trump’s top appointees trying to outdo each other in pushing their olfactory organs up the derriere of the Mad King, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem went deep. “You’ve saved hundreds of millions of lives with the cocaine you’ve blown up in the Caribbean,” she exclaimed breathlessly.

We don’t know how much cocaine has been destroyed in these illegal strikes and war crimes. And wasn’t the target supposed to be fentanyl? But we do know that “hundreds of millions of lives” have not been saved.

Last year, there were 80,391 drug overdose deaths in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, 22,174 were attributed to cocaine usage. This is a lot of death, but far from the massive number the bootlicking DHS secretary claimed. By the way, the overall number of fatal ODs was down 27 percent from the 110,037 deaths in 2023, meaning the Biden administration managed to decrease overdoses without the US military illegally attacking boats and killing noncombatants. For not knowing—or purposefully ignoring—all of this, Noem is our winner.

But Noem must share the trophy this week with the social media team of her own agency. On Thanksgiving, these bozos tweeted this:

Someone needs to study up on the story of Thanksgiving. 

After the Thanksgiving break, there was much mail to catch up on. The issue about the New York Times’ playing down Trump’s call for executing members of Congress drew passionate responses.

Judy Moler emailed:

I absolutely concur with your opinion that when Trump says something like that, it should be called what it is: an honest-to -goodness death threat, especially due to other occasions when his innuendo resulted in actual violence. But I do see the problem. The newspaper has a dilemma in needing to be seen as balanced because, in general, US citizens are quick to say “liberal bias.” which, therefore, really dilutes that message.

Yes, but MAGA and right-wingers will shout “liberal bias,” no matter what. So if mainstream outlets censor—or restrain—themselves out of fear of such labeling, they have allowed the extremists to win.

Pam Turner was rah-rah:

That piece was spot on. It summarizes the entirety of current journalism from the big players. By failing to accurately represent the facts and depicting the real Trump, they are contributing to the problem! They have completely sold their First Amendment souls to this debacle of an administration. 

Lynn Caporale suggested other headlines the New York Times could have used for the article in question:

Aside from “President says members of Congress should be executed (for stating the law),” there’s this one: “Republicans fail to support our military.” Of course, that was obvious when they confirmed Hegseth and continued to sit back as he decimates the ranks of experienced and accomplished senior military leaders. But here is another headline: “Trump demands that troops obey him when he gives illegal orders.” After all, Trump could simply have said, “Gee, what the six members of Congress are saying is no big deal. Just repeating the rule. All of my orders are legal and so of course should be obeyed.” In attacking them, Trump and his administration are in effect saying, “Our orders are illegal, and we know that they are.” 

Richard Gilbert wrote:

If telling military that they do not have to follow illegal orders is a seditious act, then what was January 6?

Under US law, an act of sedition must involve violence or the threat of violence. Encouraging soldiers to disobey illegal orders and the January 6 riot—only one of these meets that standard.

Floura Hatch shared an interesting point:

The members of Congress who brought up this issue about the military and illegal orders should get on every news channel and explain in detail what the oaths are—and that officers take a different oath than enlisted service members. It’s officers who must decide what is legal or illegal.

I turned to the US Marines for an explanation of the two different oaths. Its website says:

Both officers and enlisted service members swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, but in the Oath of Enlistment, service members swear they will “obey the orders of the president of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over [them], according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

Officers do not include this in their Oath of Office.

Instead, they swear to support and defend the constitution and “well and faithfully discharge the duties of [their] office.”

Why are the two oaths different and what does it mean that officers do not swear obedience to the president or higher ranking officers? This concept traces back to the intentions of the Founding Fathers who created our governing system with a separation of powers and series of checks and balances between the three branches. This ensures no single branch or person gains too much power and becomes corrupted. By swearing allegiance to a set of ideals and laws, our military is not bound by the orders of a single person, but are dedicated to the defense of the people and their way of life.

Stephen Wend shared an observation:

In regard to your issue on right-wing affection for Nazis: It's been a long time since I've been to a gun show. But whenever I went to one (in Rhode Island and Massachusetts), there was always a book section. And in every book section, there was a shelf or two with biographies about SS officers and histories of specific SS units. Some really sick s***. 

Al Barwick had a question:

Is there a federal regulation that all gifts to federal employees over $50.00 are turned over to the government for storage and possible sale with returns going to the federal budget. Where are these golden gifts to Trump going?

There are relatively tight rules that essentially say gifts from foreign governments are federal property. (See this article.) But would Trump follow these rules? As for other gifts, the Reagan Presidential Library explains, “Any gift not from a foreign government official is considered a domestic gift. Domestic gifts to the President and/or First Lady may be disposed of in any manner the President and First Lady wish. If they want to keep a domestic gift, they do not have to purchase it from the Government.” It looks as if Trump can keep a gold bar, as long as it’s not from an overseas government, and that he could also retain a million dollars in Bitcoin from anyone but a foreign representative.

While apologizing (unnecessarily) for missing the latest Our Land Zoom get-together (which was great fun), Trina Aguila referred to a recent item on a new song about pop star Ariana Grande called “My Cologne” from the new supergroup Howl Owl Howl, which includes Mike Mills of REM:

In a roundabout way due to Ariana Grande, I had to miss most of the Our Land gathering. This was because the teenagers at my family meet-up for the holiday week insisted we all go see Wicked for the 6:30 pm show on that Tuesday night. I snuck out of the theater mid-movie to catch the beginning of the Our Land get-together, standing in the cinema hallway with my headphones on. A bummer to miss the full gathering with Our Land people. 

Yesterday, surprisingly when I was catching up on the most recent Our Land content from November, I read your write-up about “My Cologne” and then enjoyed hearing this song by classic 90s artists. I won't go into details, but due to a recent death in my family this hasn't been the easiest holiday for me. So this catchy song and the interesting story to tell the younger family members comes at the right time. I could go into more detail about my daughter pointing out that Ariana Grande is "holding space" for REM, but I won't make this email too long for you to read.

Trina, had I known, I would have told you to watch the end of Wicked. I haven’t seen it yet, but I want to find out what happens to the dastardly Wizard. Sorry to hear of your loss. That can be especially tough during the holiday season. But I’m glad that tune was a pick-me-up. I’m sure Mike Mills of REM would appreciate Ariana Grande “holding space” for him. Good luck in the weeks ahead.

“Moxie, who are your new friends?”
“I don’t know. They’re not engaging.”
“Well, they are new to the neighborhood.”
“Something doesn’t smell right about them. Or at all.”