Former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shared on Saturday that he was being investigated for an incident that involved potentially collecting whale specimen two decades ago.
The remarks from Kennedy, the son of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, came while he was speaking at a campaign event for former President Donald Trump in Glendale, Arizona.
“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, adding that the letter came this week.
Kennedy called the investigation a “weaponization of our government against political opponents.” He also told the crowd that he responded in a letter, accusing the National Marine Fisheries Service of being behind whale deaths and calling for the agency to investigate.
Kennedy did not share any more details about the whale incident he was being investigated for, though it could be one his daughter, Katheleen “Kick” Kennedy, has previously described.
In 2012, Kick Kennedy was featured in an article for Town & Country magazine, describing an incident when she was 6, and her father used a chainsaw to cut the head off a dead whale that had washed ashore.
She went on to say that he then tied the head of the dead whale to the family’s car during their drive 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 told the magazine in 2012. “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.”
Kennedy did not comment further after the campaign event for Trump, saying he was “not going to talk” about the incident.
The National Marine Fisheries Service has not yet commented on Kennedy’s accusations. However, after the Town & Country store resurfaced last month, the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund has called on federal officials to investigate, denouncing Kennedy’s actions.
“Kennedy may think that his name and privilege mean the rules don’t apply to him, but if he had a shred of integrity left he’d surrender this whale skull and any other illegally collected wildlife parts to the authorities,” Brett Hartl, political director for the fund, said in a news release. “If he doesn’t, NOAA law enforcement should open an investigation and potentially bring charges against him.”