(The Hill) – Former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confirmed over the weekend that he is under investigation for “collecting a whale specimen 20 years ago.”
“Right after I endorsed President Trump, I received a letter from the ‘National Marine Fisheries Institute’ saying that they were investigating me for collecting a whale specimen 20 years ago,” Kennedy said Saturday at an Arizona campaign event for former President Trump in a clip published by NBC News.
“This is all about the weaponization of our government against political opponents of the party in power,” Kennedy added later.
Kennedy seemed to be referring to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that is responsible for marine fisheries.
In 2012, Kennedy’s daughter Kick told Town & Country Magazine that her father cut the head off a whale that had washed up on the shore in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, when she was a child. He then tied it to the roof of the family’s car to bring home.
“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” she claimed in the 2012 interview. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”
The interview gained traction again recently after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ended his campaign and endorsed Trump.
An environmental advocacy group last month called for Kennedy to be investigated over the incident. The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund said in a letter to NOAA that it is “illegal to possess any part of an animal, dead or alive” under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act and that NOAA should open an investigation.
In late August, Kennedy said he was suspending his campaign and backing Trump.
“In my heart, I no longer believe that I have a realistic path to electoral victory in the face of this relentless, systematic censorship and media control,” Kennedy said at the time. “So I cannot in good conscience ask my staff and volunteers to keep working their long hours, or ask my donor to keep giving when I cannot honestly tell them that I have a real path to the White House.”
The Hill has reached out to the Kennedy’s team, the Democratic National Committee and the NMFS regarding his latest remarks.