Robert F. Kennedy Jr‘s elaborate scheme to get his daughter-in-law a top job at the CIA is coming apart at the seams, after the Senate Intelligence Committee reportedly blocked the move.
Axios reported last Tuesday that the Department of Health and Human Services secretary nominee has been back-channeling support to get his former campaign manager Amaryllis Fox Kennedy nominated to deputy director of the intelligence agency under John Ratcliffe.
The move is reportedly part of an effort to uncover more details about the 1963 killing of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy.
But Fox Kennedy, who is married to RFK’s son Bobby Kennedy III, has now been ruled out of the running because of opposition on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Axios reports. But all is not lost as she could get her hands on another administration job—potentially in Tulsi Gabbard’s team. The former Hawaii congresswoman is President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination for director of national intelligence.
Axios added that Fox Kennedy could even wind up in a White House position.
It’s thought that RFK Jr. wants Fox Kennedy at the CIA because it would give her the chance to dig into the agency’s private documents about the shooting, carried out by Lee Harvey Oswald.
And the plan to get her into the hot seat was thought possible because Trump, who has promised to release the last of the JFK assassination files, enjoys a relationship with RFK Jr. that is “one of the strangest in modern political history,” according to The New York Times.
But before any of the pieces can fall into place, Senators are set to grill Kennedy on Capitol Hill Monday, concerning his plans for vaccines and food after his well-publicized doubts on vaccine science and thoughts on America’s obesity crisis.
Kennedy’s pick drew criticism mainly from many Democrats, but some Republicans expressed wariness, too. Even still, he kicked off his charm offensive in Washington D.C. in a bid to win over two dozen senators and their staff.
For her part, Fox Kennedy is a former CIA operative who spent 10 years at the agency. She ruffled feathers there when she chronicled her experiences in the 2019 memoir, Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA. The book was met with controversy over reports that she didn’t get the details of the memoir cleared with the CIA’s Publication Review Board before publishing.
Former CIA officers also questioned the accuracy and truthfulness of Fox Kennedy’s account, reported the Daily Mail.
