Public campaign finance disclosures from Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign reveal numerous payments to individuals and groups whose ideologies differ significantly from traditional Democratic Party politics, a review by CNN’s KFile finds.
Kennedy’s campaign paid a litany of prominent activists – which includes some anti-vaccine advocates, public health conspiracy theorists and Republicans, either individually or through their businesses – the filings show. One anti-vax activist, whose company was paid by Kennedy, once famously compared vaccine mandates to prosecution of Jews during the Holocaust.
The payments could undermine Kennedy’s Democratic bona fides as he attempts a longshot bid for the 2024 Democratic nomination against President Joe Biden.
Other individuals paid by Kennedy’s campaign include a film editor who worked on anti-vax films; a woman who works as a coach to help parents “unschool their children” from traditional in-person schools amidst the coronavirus pandemic; a self-declared autism advocate who has falsely linked vaccines to autism; and an artist and content creator who has a podcast that frequently discusses aliens and founded a Clubhouse channel where users ruminate on “aliens, demons, and witchcraft,” vaccine conspiracies, reptilian humanoids, and artificial intelligence.
