Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accepted $4 million in book advances and more than $270,000 in gifts over the past year from close allies working to advance his Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda, according to his latest financial disclosure. Ethics experts say the arrangements may violate federal rules barring officials from profiting from their positions, as The New York Times’ Christina Jewett and Sheryl Gay Stolberg report.
The advances cover two books, including one called “Unsettled Science,” to be published by Skyhorse Publishing. Its owner, Tony Lyons, is a longtime Kennedy friend who also sits atop a constellation of MAHA groups. Federal ethics rules say an official may not receive outside compensation for writing a book related to his official duties.
One of Lyons’ groups, the advocacy nonprofit MAHA Action, paid Kennedy’s wife, Cheryl Hines, $210,000 in consulting fees. Richard Painter, a White House ethics counsel under President George W. Bush, said the arrangement “reeks of conflict of interest.” As he put it: “You have a situation like this, it just looks horrible.”
The gifts came largely from Gavin de Becker, a security executive and friend who provided $126,000 worth of lodging in his Washington home and nearly $150,000 in airfare for trips to Greece and Fiji. De Becker shares Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism, and his 2025 book on alleged vaccine harms was published by Skyhorse.
“Lavish gifts to an official from major political donors don’t get the same benefit of the doubt as dinner from a former classmate,” said Kedric Payne, senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center.
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An HHS spokeswoman said Kennedy “complies with all applicable federal ethics laws, regulations and financial disclosure requirements.” Kennedy has previously brushed off concerns about MAHA-aligned donors. “I don’t run the MAHA PAC,” he told senators last year. “I have no idea who’s contributing to them.”
