Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Denies Antisemitism Charge at Hearing

WASHINGTON— Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , who has promoted a number of conspiracy theories in the course of his long-shot campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, on Thursday told lawmakers he was the victim of censorship by social media and members of his party while defending himself against charges of antisemitism.

“Antisemitism, racism—these are the most appalling, disgusting words applied to me to silence me, because people don’t want me to have that conversation about the war, about groceries, about inflation, about the war on the middle class in this country that we need to be having,” Kennedy said at a hearing convened by House Republicans. 

The 69-year-old environmental lawyer also addressed his stance on vaccines, saying that contrary to how critics have labeled him, “I have never been antivax.” 

Democrats had called Kennedy’s appearance at the hearing a GOP stunt and had sought to get him disinvited after recent comments about the Covid-19 virus. Last week, he drew wide accusations of antisemitism and racism with comments asserting that the virus was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people” while sparing Chinese people and Ashkenazi Jews.

 A White House spokeswoman called the comments vile, and more than 100 Democrats signed a letter saying he shouldn’t be given a platform in the House hearing to “spread his baseless and discriminatory views.” 

Kennedy was a witness before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, created by the new Republican majority this year to investigate alleged abuses of federal authority.

The scion of one of America’s most prominent political families has aired a variety of claims that have been debunked by public health experts, such as linking child vaccines to autism and casting doubt on the safety of Covid-19 vaccines. On other topics, he has questioned whether Wi-Fi exposure leads to cancer. 

In a recent interview, Kennedy told The Wall Street Journal his views on vaccines have been misconstrued and that he isn’t antivaccine. He said he has all the required childhood vaccines but isn’t vaccinated against Covid-19 and believes that vaccines should undergo more rigorous scrutiny.

In his testimony Thursday, Kennedy, who has rankled Democratic leaders with his challenge to President Biden, said that social-media companies had tried to mute his speech. He invoked the late Sen. Robert Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy

“Censorship is antithetical to our party. It was appalling to my father, my uncle, FDR, Harry Truman, ” he said. “I am being censored here…through smears, through misinterpretations of what I’ve said through lies, through association,” he said. 

Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) said the hearing was intended to look into alleged censorship against figures including Kennedy and others: “Big tech, big government working together—big media—working all together to censor American speech.” Republicans for years have accused large technology firms of being biased against conservatives, a charge they deny.

When Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) asked Kennedy about his comments last week that the Covid-19 virus was “ethnically targeted,” the candidate said that he was describing a federally funded study and was now being misrepresented. “You are slandering me, incorrectly,” he said.

Rep.

Wasserman Schultz said that Kennedy, however, had said the virus had been engineered to target certain groups by race or ethnicity. He had been talking, at a press event in New York City, about U.S. and Chinese efforts to make ethnically targeted bioweapons when he spoke about Covid-19. “We don’t know if it was deliberately targeted or not,” he had said at the New York event.

Wasserman Schultz said the comments fanned antisemitic violence and marginalized Asian-Americans. While praising the Kennedy family’s legacy, she said, “What you are doing now, Mr. Kennedy and the forces you aligned yourself [with] are reckless, dangerous and disturbing.”

Biden is the clear favorite for the Democratic nomination, while Kennedy has been polling in the teens. The self-help author

Write to Aaron Zitner at [email protected]