RFK hasn't done enough to address his conflicts of interest

Having been a health policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation in a former life, I understand how big the task before the next secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be. And having watched much of the hearings about Robert Kennedy Jr.’s appointment, I’m more alarmed than I was before.

RFK was chosen to be a boat-rocker. If one department is ripe for finding waste, fraud and abuse, it is HHS. It spends almost $2 trillion per year, and accounting for all of that money is nearly impossible. To take on a beast like this one, you have to be above-board with what you’re doing.

Kennedy’s mission is to shrink; to eliminate the unnecessary and unneeded. It’s far too big a task for any one man. An effective secretary needs trustworthy staff and good judgment. And that judgment part is where I see problems for Kennedy. 

The arguments about his not being a doctor or an expert are empty political ploys that won’t really land. For one thing, the average person doesn’t know or care what a health policy expert is or knows. And the people to whom it matters won’t support RFK anyway, despite having backed the equally unqualified Xavier Becerra, the Biden HHS secretary who came into the job with no health care or public health background whatsoever, and then basically went missing after his confirmation.

That doesn’t mean it will be smooth sailing for RFK. Democrats are desperate for at least one scalp, to show supporters they aren’t completely powerless. The list of possible scalps shrinks daily, as nominees outperform Democrats in their hearings and win over skeptical Republican Senators. RFK is one of the last bites at the apple they have left.

Throughout these hearings, RFK has given a lot of ammunition to those who oppose his nomination. Instead of putting controversial positions and stances to rest, he’s exacerbated them.

Which brings us to conflicts of interest. The thing about conflicts of interest is they don’t really have to exist in order to matter — they just have to appear to exist to have hay made out of them.

Sometimes they do exist. Joe Biden’s family presented an unending stream of conflicts, as they made money from countries and industries they seemingly knew nothing about and then got open-ended pardons for their troubles, just in case they did something illegal. Sometimes, the conflicts don’t exist, as when people pretended that foreign diplomats spending hundreds of dollars for a room at a Trump hotel would influence a presidential decisionmaking process. 

With RFK, it appears to be a lawsuit over vaccines.

Gardasil is a vaccine against the human papillomavirus. Many people swear by it, and some countries claim it is responsible for the near-elimination of cervical cancer. But nothing is universally loved, and RFK is a party to a lawsuit against its manufacturer. He stands to gain financially if the suit is successful. 

As HHS secretary, being party to such a lawsuit in an industry he will have influence over, he has at least the appearance of a conflict. That’s something even people who don’t pay attention can understand. Having an argument with a senator at your confirmation hearing doesn’t help. Nor does later changing your mind about the appearance of a conflict and removing yourself from the case in a way that only confers upon your son the financial stake you have in the case.  

RFK’s move in this regard only raises more eyebrows. In an effort to distance himself from the conflict, RFK just made it clearer that he or his family will continue to profit from suing a company he would regulate as HHS secretary — the ultimate “appearance of impropriety.” Rather than eliminate concerns, his actions have reinforced the worst preconceived notions of his potential conflict of interest.

I’m no lawyer, but I do understand politics. The politics of this don’t look good. If your financial stake represents a probable conflict of interest, then you can’t solve the problem by just handing it off to someone in your family. 

I would like to see RFK rock the boat at HHS — he can tip it over for all I care. But he can’t do it effectively if he is hampered by conflicts of interest. If he doesn’t completely lose those conflicts, he may not get the chance to do anything. 

Derek Hunter is host of the Derek Hunter Podcast and a former staffer for the late Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.).