Washington, D.C. – Today MoveOn Political Action denounced Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s abhorrent behavior revealed in an explosive Vanity Fair piece published today – allegations that he hasn’t declined. The piece details how RFK Jr. sexually assaulted his children’s former babysitter, Eliza Cooney. Additionally, the reporting surfaced that RFK Jr. regularly shared nonconsensual explicit images of women with friends. 

“The allegations that have surfaced today about RFK Jr. are abhorrent and absolutely disqualifying. These are not mere ‘skeletons’ - this is beyond harmful behavior that mirrors the backwards ideas he has been spewing as a candidate. RFK Jr. should bow out of this race now and the women he victimized deserve justice. The stakes are too high for someone with this troubling record and these extreme views to swing the election for Donald Trump,” said MoveOn Political Action Executive Director Rahna Epting. 

Background:  

This isn’t the first time that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been accused of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior toward women. In his 2015 book RFK Jr.: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream, Jerry Oppenheimer reported that multiple women said RFK Jr. had touched them inappropriately or exposed himself to them – repeatedly fondling women under dinner tables and exposing himself to his wife and her friends around their house.

RFK Jr. also staunchly defended three of his relatives who were accused of rape and violence against women or girls:

• In 1997, RFK Jr. publicly defended his brother Michael L. Kennedy, who had an ongoing sexual relationship with a girl who was his children’s babysitter, reportedly beginning when she was 14.
• In 1991, RFK Jr. publicly defended his cousin William Kennedy Smith, who was charged with raping a woman at the family’s compound in Florida. RFK Jr. said his cousin’s accuser had some “sad and serious emotional problems.”
• Throughout the 2000s, RFK Jr. publicly defended his cousin Michael Skakel, who was charged with and later convicted of murdering Martha Moxley when both Skakel and Moxley were 15 years old. Skakel admitted to masturbating outside of Moxley’s bedroom window on the night of her murder. In 2016, RFK Jr. published a book that accused two Black men of the crime, allegations that were rejected by a court and have been scrutinized in the media.

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