Federal agency closes investigation into RFK Jr. over dead whale carcass, saying allegation unfounded
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes questions from reporters during a campaign event in Aurora
By Mary Kay Mallonee, CNN
(CNN) — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday it has closed its investigation into Robert F. Kennedy Jr., finding that an allegation he decapitated a dead whale carcass two decades ago was unfounded.
Last month, Kennedy said at a campaign event in Arizona he had received a letter from the National Marine Fisheries Services, an organization that falls underneath NOAA, informing him he was under investigation for an incident he said occurred 20 years ago in which he collected a dead whale specimen and took it home.
“NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement determined the allegation to be unfounded and has closed the investigation,” a spokesperson for the agency told CNN.
The spokesperson did not provide any other information related to the investigation.
Stefanie Spear, a spokesperson for Kennedy, told CNN, “I hope this frees up NOAA’s enforcement resources so that they can finally investigate the 109 Atlantic whale deaths since 2022 in proximity to offshore wind projects.
NOAA notes under the “frequent questions” on its site that “there are no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities.”
The story about Kennedy and the whale carcass resurfaced shortly after he suspended his independent presidential campaign and endorsed former President Donald Trump.
A 2012 interview with his daughter Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy published in Town & Country Magazine circulated on social media in which she recalled her father using a chainsaw to cut off the head of a dead whale carcass on the beach near their Cape Cod family home and driving the whale’s head back to New York on the roof of the family’s minivan.
The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, an environmental conservation group that endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president, had written a letter to the NOAA calling for an investigation into whether Kennedy violated federal laws protecting wildlife and arguing his actions could have jeopardized scientific research.
CNN’s Aaron Pellish contributed to this report.
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