Letters Show RFK Jr. Told Samoa's PM His 2019 Trip Was About the MMR Vaccine, Contradicting Senate Testimony

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told lawmakers deciding his fate as health secretary nominee that his 2019 trip to Samoa had, in his words, "nothing to do with vaccines." A letter obtained by the Associated Press and the Guardian, which Kennedy sent to the Samoan prime minister before that trip, says otherwise.

In the letter, Kennedy used the words "vaccine" or "vaccination" eight times. He proposed sending his team to conduct what he called a "detailed health informatics assessment in Samoa of what happened with your MMR vaccines," after two children died following MMR shots there.

"I am writing this letter to you in the hope that we might be helpful to the people of your great nation," Kennedy wrote, adding he believed the children's deaths could have stemmed from manufacturing problems with the vaccine batch, not the vaccine itself.

That timeline matters. Kennedy visited Samoa in 2019 while running Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine nonprofit he chaired for years. Months after his visit, a measles outbreak tore through the island, killing 83 people, most of them children under five, according to the AP. Critics have long argued the visit emboldened anti-vaccine sentiment there right before the outbreak hit. Kennedy has denied that.

What He Told Congress

During his confirmation hearings, Kennedy faced pointed questions from senators, including Republicans he needed on his side to get confirmed. He told them the Samoa trip had nothing to do with vaccines. He also pledged during those hearings to preserve existing vaccine policy, then moved to change it once he took office at HHS.

Kennedy was not under oath during his confirmation hearings. But lying to Congress doesn't require an oath to be a crime. Knowingly giving false material testimony to lawmakers carries a possible prison sentence whether or not the witness was sworn in, though prosecutions for it are rare, according to the AP.

HHS Pushes Back Hard

The Department of Health and Human Services didn't budge when the AP and Guardian asked about the contradiction. A spokesperson said the Samoa visit "was unrelated to vaccines" and called any suggestion that Kennedy lied to Congress "not only false but outright defamatory."

That's a strong statement to make about a document that mentions vaccines eight times and proposes studying MMR shots specifically. HHS did not explain how a letter proposing a vaccine safety assessment squares with a trip described as having nothing to do with vaccines. The department did not make Kennedy available for an interview. The White House didn't respond to requests for comment. Samoa's current and former prime ministers' offices also didn't respond.

The Fair Reading

Kennedy could argue that intent and outcome aren't the same thing. His stated purpose was investigating whether the two children's deaths were caused by a bad vaccine batch, a manufacturing issue, not opposition to vaccination itself. If that's the honest distinction he's drawing, "nothing to do with vaccines" would be a defense of his motives rather than a factual claim about the letter's contents.

The problem is that's not what he told senators. He didn't say "I was investigating a manufacturing defect, not campaigning against vaccines." He said the trip had nothing to do with vaccines, period. The letter contradicts the plain language of that claim, not just the spirit of it.

What Happens Next

Attorneys with Senate procedure experience told the AP that if Democrats win control of Congress in the November midterms, they could use these documents as grounds for hearings or an impeachment inquiry into Kennedy. Under the current Republican-controlled Congress, aligned with President Trump's administration, that kind of action is considered unlikely, per the AP's own reporting.

So this goes nowhere fast unless the political math in Washington changes after November. The Guardian's framing leans hardest into the "lied under oath" angle, even flagging that Kennedy wasn't technically under oath, a detail all four outlets note but that carries real legal weight for whether this rises to a prosecutable offense versus a political liability. For now, it's the latter. Kennedy remains health secretary. The letter remains public record. The gap between what he wrote in 2019 and what he told the Senate in 2025 remains unexplained by HHS.