The relatives showing bad blood is thicker than water

As Caroline Kennedy dishes the dirt on predator’ RFK Jr, we must remember that even the president hasn’t been safe from family speaking out against him, Rowan Pelling reports

- Rowan Pelling

RFK Jr may have felt prepped for assailants, both physical and political, but he almost certainly hadn't reckoned with the wrathful woman in his own family. The grilling by the Senate Committee on Finance, which wields the crucial vote on whether his nomination to become secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services should proceed, was nothing compared to the open letter penned by his cousin Caroline Kennedy.

Videoing herself reading the missive and releasing the footage on her social media account, the world watched the sole surviving child of JFK and first woman to serve as US ambassador to Japan land blow after blow.

“He lacks any relevant government, financial, management, or medical experience. His views on vaccines are dangerous and wilfully misinformed.” Then she tells us what she really thinks: “It is no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets because he himself is a predator.” Adding gory heft to the metaphor, she describes him as a young man, “enjoying showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in the blender to feed his hawks”.

She alleges that RFK Jr preys on the desperate parents “of sick kids” by “hypocritically” encouraging them to abandon vaccines, even though his own children are vaccinated. The razor-sharp cuts are that “Bobby is addicted to attention and power” and “has gone on to misrepresent, lie and cheat his way through life”.

And while RFK Jr’s past battles with drug abuse have been well documented (in 1984 he pleaded guilty to possessing heroin on a plane) it is something which his cousin brings back into focus. With intimate knowledge of the comings and goings of family life behind closed doors, she paints a picture where his home basement and garage, along with his student dorm, “was often a perverse scene of despair and violence”.