Biden-Aligned Group Pressures Jim Jordan to Disinvite RFK Jr. From Government Weaponization Hearing

Democratic Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., during a SiriusXM Town Hall live broadcast at The Centre Theater in Philadelphia on June 5, 2023. Lisa Lake/Getty Images for SiriusXM

An activist group aligned with President Joe Biden has issued a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), demanding that he disinvite Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from testifying at an upcoming hearing on the alleged weaponization of federal government offices and resources.

Mr. Kennedy, who is currently challenging Mr. Biden in the 2024 Democratic primary, is scheduled to testify before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on July 20. But a left-of-center activist group opposing Republican members of Congress called the Congressional Integrity Project (CIP) is asking Mr. Jordan to call it off.

CIP launched a new initiative in November to push back on Republican congressional investigations of the Biden administration after Republicans won control of the House of Representatives. On CIP’s website, the organization states it “will investigate the investigators, expose their political motivations and the monied special interests supporting their work, and hold them accountable for ignoring the urgent priorities of all Americans in order to smear Joe Biden and do the political bidding of Trump and MAGA Republicans.”

In their letter to Mr. Jordan, CIP cast Mr. Kennedy as a “conspiracy theorist” and “Russian propagandist,” accusing him of spreading “antisemitic and xenophobic” views, while describing Mr. Jordan’s decision to seek Mr. Kennedy’s testimony as the continuation of a “failed” effort to undermine the Biden administration.

“Your MAGA cult leader Donald Trump expects you to deliver and you and your friend [House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer] have failed spectacularly every step of the way,” CIP Executive Director Kyle Herrig wrote. “And now you think having Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. testify in support of your debunked theories will somehow own President Biden and the Democrats—but in reality all you’re doing is proving to all the world what a desperate man you are.”

NTD News reached out to Mr. Jordan and the House Judiciary Committee for comment but did not receive a response by the time this article was published.

Kennedy Accused of Antisemitism

“I’m writing to formally call on you to disinvite Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. from next week’s so-called weaponization of the federal government hearing,” Herrig wrote. “Not only is he a known conspiracy theorist whose anti-vaccine views have put lives in jeopardy, a Russian propagandist who has sided with [Russian President Vladimir Putin] over Ukraine, and a total whack job whose views and conspiracy theories would be completely ignored but for his last name, but we now have video evidence of his horrific antisemitic and xenophobic views which are simply beyond the pale.”

To support its allegation that Mr. Kennedy had expressed antisemitic and xenophobic views, CIP linked a clip of the presidential candidate speaking at a July 11 campaign press event in New York City. In the video clip, Mr. Kennedy said of China’s COVID-19, “There is an argument that [COVID-19] is ethnically targeted” before claiming the virus impacted certain races disproportionately than others.

“COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” Mr. Kennedy said. “We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact.”

Mr. Kennedy has since defended his remarks from charges of antisemitism, insisting he was talking about how various world governments could develop ethnically-targeted bioweapons and referencing a 2021 study on the disparate impact of COVID-19 on certain ethnic groups due to the genetic structure of the virus.

“I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews. I accurately pointed out—during an off-the-record conversation—that the U.S. and other governments are developing ethnically targeted bioweapons and that a 2021 study of the COVID-19 virus shows that COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races since the furin cleave docking site is most compatible with Blacks and Caucasians and least compatible with ethnic Chinese, Finns, and Ashkenazi Jews,” Mr. Kennedy said in a July 15 tweet. “In that sense, it serves as a kind of proof of concept for ethnically targeted bioweapons. I do not believe and never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered.”

NTD News reached out to CIP for comment about Mr. Kennedy’s response to the antisemitism allegations. When asked whether the group still stood by its characterization of Mr. Kennedy’s comments as anti-semitic, CIP replied, “Unequivocally, yes.”

Kennedy Has Sued Biden Over Censorship

While Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Biden are both running as Democrats, they’ve demonstrated differing views on a number of issues, including COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates, and the war in Ukraine.

Mr. Kennedy founded the non-profit organization Children’s Health Defense (CHD), which has been critical of COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine mandates. Mr. Kennedy and CHD filed a federal lawsuit in March, accusing the Biden administration of working with big tech companies to induce those companies to censor Mr. Kennedy’s constitutionally-protected speech.

A federal judge just issued a preliminary injunction against the Biden administration in a similar case, finding that a number of plaintiffs were “likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition.”

That case, which was brought by Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, described an instance in January of 2021 in which a White House official flagged a tweet by Mr. Kennedy and sent an email to Twitter officials stating, “Hey folks-Wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP.”