Trump vows to ‘love and cherish' Medicaid — while Republicans plot cuts for savings
In a written response submitted to the Senate Finance Committee, Kennedy said he was amending his ethics pledge and planned to "divest my interest in this litigation."
Any proceeds stemming from the suit will instead go to one of his sons, according to a copy of his correspondence obtained by POLITICO.
The arrangement is still likely to face scrutiny from ethics experts, and the forthcoming amendments didn't appease Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who first pressed Kennedy on his financial ties to pharma litigation on Wednesday — a Finance Committee exchange in which he refused to commit to forgoing his stake in litigation against the drug company Merck.
Kennedy initially stood to collect 10 percent of any fees awarded in the lawsuit over Merck's HPV vaccine, through a referral arrangement with the law firm Wisner Baum.
Federal conflict-of-interest law forbids government workers from 'participating personally and substantially in official matters where they have a financial interest,' according to the Office of Government Ethics, the independent agency that oversees federal nominees' pledges. That prohibition also extends to the interests of their spouses, partners and minor children.
Kennedy's promise to direct certain payments to an adult son exploits 'a loophole in this law that it's clear that this arrangement is designed to sort of fall into,' said Donald Sherman, executive director and chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group.
The HHS nominee had already made roughly $2.5 million for referring cases to Wisner Baum over the last few years, according to his financial disclosures. While he promised to end that arrangement, Kennedy in an ethics agreement earlier this month said he planned to "retain a contingency fee interest" in cases where the U.S. was not a party to the lawsuit or didn't hold a direct or substantial stake.
Democrats had blasted that decision as a conflict of interest, arguing that he would be responsible for regulating Merck as HHS secretary at the same time as he stood to benefit from an ongoing legal case against it.
'Kennedy can kill off access to vaccines and make millions of dollars while he does it,' Warren said Wednesday while questioning him. 'Kids might die, but Robert Kennedy can keep cashing in.'
Kennedy has yet to receive any payments related to cases he referred to the firm for its Gardasil lawsuit, which claims that Merck concealed the risks of serious side effects from Gardasil when seeking FDA approval. The company denies the allegations.
Should Wisner Baum's lawsuit be successful, it's unclear which of Kennedy's four sons would receive the fees owed to him. One of Kennedy's sons, Conor Kennedy, is an attorney in Wisner Baum's Los Angeles office.
Kennedy has also referred cases to the firm pertaining to damages from the 2018 Woolsey fire in Los Angeles and from cancer cases that patients claim are linked to the weed-killer Roundup, according to his disclosures.
A spokesperson for Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment.
The pending amendment to his ethics pledge comes after Kennedy's statements during two confirmation hearings this week created confusion around his ethics disclosure, which contained promises that seemingly contradicted each other. An HHS ethics official signed off on Kennedy's initial agreement on Jan. 21.
Warren said in a statement Friday that Kennedy's responses 'raise new questions about the scope of his conflicts' and should prompt Senate leadership to delay any nomination vote until his revised ethics pledge is 'thoroughly reviewed.'
Kennedy told senators he steered 'many hundreds of cases' to Wisner Baum and that it was 'impossible' to disclose all details to the committee 'in the time allotted for my response.'
He said that the federal government is a party to some of the cases he's referred to Wisner Baum and has 'a direct and substantial interest' in others.
'As provided in my Ethics Agreement, I am divesting my interest in all such cases,' Kennedy said in response to senators' questions.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
20 minutes ago
- Associated Press
At least 600 CDC employees are getting final termination notices, union says
NEW YORK (AP) — At least 600 employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are receiving permanent termination notices in the wake of a recent court decision that protected some CDC employees from layoffs but not others. The notices went out this week and many people have not yet received them, according to the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 2,000 dues-paying members at CDC. Officials with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment. AFGE officials said they are aware of at least 600 employees being cut. But 'due to a staggering lack of transparency from HHS,' the union hasn't received formal notices of who is being laid off,' the federation said in a statement on Wednesday. The permanent cuts include about 100 people who worked in violence prevention. Some employees noted those cuts come less than two weeks after a man fired at least 180 bullets into the CDC's campus and killed a police officer. 'The irony is devastating: The very experts trained to understand, interrupt and prevent this kind of violence were among those whose jobs were eliminated,' some of the affected employees wrote in a blog post last week. On April 1, the HHS officials sent layoff notices to thousands of employees at the CDC and other federal health agencies, part of a sweeping overhaul designed to vastly shrink the agencies responsible for protecting and promoting Americans' health. Many have been on administrative leave since then — paid but not allowed to work — as lawsuits played out. A federal judge in Rhode Island last week issued a preliminary ruling that protected employees in several parts of the CDC, including groups dealing with smoking, reproductive health, environmental health, workplace safety, birth defects and sexually transmitted diseases. But the ruling did not protect other CDC employees, and layoffs are being finalized across other parts of the agency, including in the freedom of information office. The terminations were effective as of Monday, employees were told. Affected projects included work to prevent rape, child abuse and teen dating violence. The laid-off staff included people who have helped other countries to track violence against children — an effort that helped give rise to an international conference in November at which countries talked about setting violence-reduction goals. 'There are nationally and internationally recognized experts that will be impossible to replace,' said Tom Simon, the retired senior director for scientific programs at the CDC's Division of Violence Prevention. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
New York Post
22 minutes ago
- New York Post
Ex-CBS reporter rips network's ‘bias' after Shari Redstone expressed concerns over Biden interview
Former CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge called out the network after a report revealed that Shari Redstone expressed concerns that '60 Minutes' may have downplayed President Biden's mental decline during a sitdown in 2023. Herridge — who was fired last year as part of a wider cost-cutting purge by parent company Paramount ahead of its $8 billion merger with Skydance — slammed CBS News for its lack of 'media transparency' after Redstone said the Biden interview played a part in her decision to settle with President Trump. The daughter of the late media mogul Sumner Redstone drew wide-spread criticism for agreeing to pay Trump $16 million over his allegations that '60 Minutes' deceptively edited an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris to make her sound better shortly before November's election. 4 Redstone, who sold Paramount to Skydance earlier this month, said she felt CBS needed more balance to its reporting on issues like Israel's war against Hamas. FilmMagic Redstone, however, feared that going to trial could expose the network to a claim that '60 Minutes' concealed the aging Biden's condition, she told the New York Times on Tuesday. Herridge has demanded that CBS release the raw video and transcripts of the interview by '60 Minutes' correspondent Scott Pelley. 'Last year, I called for more transparency. @60Minutes about its October 2023 interview with President Biden. Now we learn via @nytimes even the owner Shari Redstone had concerns,' the award-winning journalist wrote on X late Tuesday. 4 Herridge slammed her former employer for a lack of transparency after Shari Redstone told The Times she was concerned over '60 Minutes'' edit of its Biden sitdown. Getty Images 'Releasing the raw video and transcripts from the Biden interview would address the larger question of whether there is a pattern and practice @CBSNews of heavy-handed editing to make some politicians look better and other politicians look worse. In this case, did editing conceal President Biden's cognitive decline?' When contacted by The Post, Herridge added that '60 Minutes' should make the material public in order to garner the public's trust in the storied outlet. 'If there's no problem, making the material public would reinforce '60 Minutes' position that their editing meets the highest standards,' she said, adding that if the program refuses it says a lot. 'My training is that with major newsmakers, the full transcript should always be released.' Herridge had previously told The Post that CBS CEO George Cheeks gave her the green light to prioritize balanced coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story at the behest of Redstone, but faced roadblocks from her immediate bosses. She reiterated that claim in her post on Tuesday. 'I was stunned by the obstruction and bias of some senior CBS News executives who resisted the balanced coverage Redstone had called for,' she wrote on Tuesday. Cheeks has been retained by the newly-formed Paramount Skydance Corp. as chief of its media and TV division. Redstone walked away with around $2 billion after selling her controlling stake in Paramount to Skydance. She told the Times that part of the reason she wanted to settle Trump's $20 billion lawsuit was because it could help address the network's anti-Israel bias. 4 Redstone told The Times that a CBS staffer who saw the Biden interview said he appeared 'drowsy' and that there were fears that the network cleaned up the edit to cover up his cognitive decline. AP Redstone also was worried that Trump's lawyers could 'cherry-pick raw footage and internal communications' which could do major 'damage to CBS News's reputation,' according to the Times. Those fears were also related to the Biden interview, which one CBS staffer told Redstone reportedly appeared to conceal his decline. The person told Redstone that Biden 'seemed drowsy and had to be prodded to answer' Pelley's questions, the Times reported. 'This case was never as black-and-white as people assumed,' Redstone told the outlet. Other CBS staffers who witnessed the interview and saw the raw footage told the Times that Redstone's concerns were 'overblown.' A rep for CBS News declined to comment.
The Hill
22 minutes ago
- The Hill
Newsom, Booker rally support for California redistricting on DNC call
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) appeared alongside Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin and Texas state Rep. Nicole Collier (D) as they rallied their party behind California's redistricting measure. 'Yes, we'll fight fire with fire. Yes, we will push back. It's not about whether we play hardball anymore. It's about how we play hardball,' Newsom said on the call. Newsom and California Democrats released a new set of congressional lines last week that look to offset expected gains Texas Republicans will likely make with their new House map once passed. Democrats are seeking to put their House map on the ballot before voters this November, pressing voters to allow lawmakers to redraw the map in the middle of the decade and bypass the state's independent redistricting commission. Republicans have already challenging California Democrats' ability to put the measure before voters and other top GOP leaders like former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R) have also signaled they're preparing to fight the map. The appearance of Booker and Newsom together is notable given both have been floated as 2028 White House hopefuls. The two painted a picture of democracy under threat and emphasized the stakes of the redistricting battle. 'The is all hands-on deck right now. People are going to ask, 'Where did you stand when Donald Trump was violating court orders?' 'Where did you stand when he was trashing the concept of due process in our country?'' Booker said. ''Where did you stand when he was sending out masked unidentified people in unmarked vehicles to sweep people off of our streets?'' 'I'll be damned if I'm going to continue to let Donald Trump, Republicans from Texas continue to disregard, demean and degrade other Americans, to deny them their rights without a fight,' he added later. During the call, state Rep. Nicole Collier (D) was asked to leave at one point while she was participating in the call from a bathroom in the Texas Capitol, saying 'They said it's a felony for me to do this. Apparently I can't be on the floor or in a bathroom.' It's unclear what wrongdoing Collier committed. The Hill has reached out to Collier's office, the Texas House Democratic Caucus and Texas House GOP caucus for comment. Democrats on the call slammed the move. 'Rep. Collier in the bathroom has more dignity than Donald Trump in the Oval Office,' Booker said. 'That is outrageous. What they're trying to do right there, is silence an American leader, silence a Black woman and that is outrageous,' he added.
