The Case for Impeaching RFK Jr.

The U.S. midterm elections are over, and the vibes are looking good. There are still a few lingering House and Senate races left to be decided, but the Democratic Party will have a clear majority in both chambers of Congress come next January, overturning the previous stranglehold by the GOP. And while there are many potential legislative and other changes that could happen as a result of this reshuffling (legal cannabis in Texas, anyone?), I have a proposal of my own: The next Congress should try to impeach Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the longstanding antivaxxer currently helming our country’s public health system as head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Drastic as such a move would be, it’s also one well-earned by Kennedy’s many failures and arguably illegal actions while on the job. And I’m not the only person who thinks so. “Stand Up for Science has both the resources and the strategic roadmap to ensure Congress holds accountable those who have brought so much harm to the scientific ecosystem,” Colette Delawalla, president and CEO of Stand Up for Science, a non-profit organization formed early last year in the wake of the Trump administration’s efforts to cut federal research funding, told Gizmodo. “First on our list is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who must be removed and held accountable for the damage he’s inflicted on the public. SUFS pursued articles of impeachment before, and we’ll do it again.” The case against impeachment Impeachment is a serious matter, intended only as a measure to remove public officials from office for grave acts of misconduct or abuses of power. But there’s certainly the risk that it can be misused to settle political scores. In early 2024, for instance, Republicans—who had won a slight majority of the House in 2022—pushed through two articles of impeachment against Alejandro Mayorkas, then the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, for allegedly failing to comply with federal immigration laws. Mayorkas became only the second Cabinet member to be impeached in U.S. history, and the first since Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876. Democrats argued that Mayorkas was only being targeted over a policy dispute on border enforcement, and the Democratic-led Senate dismissed both articles roughly three hours after convening as an impeachment court. The Senate passed a motion stating that the articles did not allege any conduct that rose “to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor.” That said, I think this is a threshold that RFK Jr. has more than met during his tenure as HHS chief. The case for impeachment As I’ve argued before, since taking over HHS, RFK Jr., along with his allies, have gutted the country’s public health infrastructure, emboldened medical charlatans, and set government agencies on wild goose chases to support his pet theories, all while minimizing actual threats to people’s health. On his urging, the White House also fired former CDC chief Susan Monarez last year for trying to stop his anti-science agenda. The U.S. is currently in the midst of the worst measles outbreaks seen in more than 30 years, which have left thousands of children sickened and several dead this year alone. Kennedy, to his credit, has recommended measles vaccination numerous times in response to the outbreaks, though he’s also endorsed unproven and potentially dangerous treatments for the viral disease. He’s also tried to downplay the government’s failure to contain measles, cast doubt on reported measles deaths, and obscure his long history of spreading misinformation about vaccines, including the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) shot. “As long as RFK Jr. is at the helm, the threats to public health loom large,” Kayla Hancock, director of the Public Health Project at Protect Our Care, an advocacy group originally founded in 2016 to protest the first Trump administration’s attempts to repeal or weaken the Affordable Care Act, told Gizmodo. “He has been an absent leader throughout every public health crisis that has come across his desk, instead spending the past several months campaigning for failed campaigns across the country, promoting himself.” Measles aside, RFK Jr. has arguably broken the law in his pursuit to purportedly “Make America Healthy Again.” The American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups are currently suing Kennedy and HHS, for instance. Among other complaints, the plaintiffs argue that RFK Jr. has repeatedly gone beyond his legal authority by overturning federal vaccine recommendations without due process and unilaterally replacing the members of a CDC vaccine advisory panel with his own appointees. Though this lawsuit is still ongoing, a federal judge issued a ruling in March temporarily blocking some of these changes. A coalition of Democrat-led states has also filed a separate lawsuit against Kennedy and the federal government for allegedly dropping universal recommendations for several childhood vaccines without the required review. And at least 19 states are suing Kennedy and HHS over the drastic staffing and funding cuts within the agency that he authorized early last year. In April, a federal judge denied the government’s motion to dismiss the case. Some Democratic lawmakers have also called for a criminal probe into whether RFK Jr. lied during his two confirmation hearings. In the summer of 2019, Kennedy visited the country of Samoa, which had recently suspended its measles vaccination program after two children died from MMR vaccines that were accidentally mixed with the wrong ingredients. During the hearing, Kennedy stated that his trip “had nothing to do with vaccines.” However, subsequent reporting showed that Kennedy openly discussed his plans prior to the visit to review the safety of the MMR vaccine. Later that year, Samoa experienced a massive outbreak of measles that killed at least 83 people, mostly children under five. “Impeachment was a pipe dream with complacent Republicans in charge, but not anymore, and the case could not be stronger,” Hancock said. This wouldn’t be the first time lawmakers have tried to impeach RFK Jr. either. Last December, Michigan House representative Haley Stevens introduced articles of impeachment against Kennedy, though it didn’t go very far. Unfortunately for Stevens, I don’t think that’s what she’ll be best remembered for. What might actually happen Now let’s be realistic here. Even if the Democrats go on to impeach RFK Jr., it’s far from guaranteed that they’ll actually be able to remove him from office. Only a simple majority vote of the House is needed for an impeachment, but securing a full trial (as mentioned earlier) still requires the Senate to be on board as well. And a conviction requires two-thirds of the Senate (67 with all members present), or a supermajority, to vote yes. Even if both remaining Senate races end in favor for Democrats, resulting in 56 seats, you would still need buy-in from 11 GOP senators. Some GOP senators had started to criticize RFK Jr. for his shoddy job performance even prior to the midterms. That said, his arguably harshest Republican critic, Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), isn’t coming back for the next term. Still, with the GOP now in complete disarray and with an eye toward the 2028 presidential election, maybe there will be enough defectors willing to vote to convict Kennedy, if only to cast him as a scapegoat for the failings of the administration. Kennedy certainly wouldn’t be the only Trump cabinet member whose future is looking bleaker now (looking at you, Pete Hegseth). I’m personally not getting my hopes up for that outcome. But an impeachment trial of RFK Jr. would nevertheless send a strong signal to the American public—the majority of whom do not think highly of his HHS reign—that our currently rotting public health system can still be mended in time. “I cannot pretend to know where the politics are going in terms of a potential impeachment. But what I’m watching for is the expectation that there would be large public support within scientific societies and scientific groups for his departure,” Jennifer Jones, director of the Center for Science & Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Gizmodo. “On a daily basis, until we have good competent leadership of HHS, every American and every American’s family is at risk.” Voters massively swung in favor of Democrats this midterm because they’re not happy about the status quo. And while RFK Jr. may only be one of many reasons for this understandable dissatisfaction, it’s still one that we should try to remedy as soon as possible.