RFK Jr. Believes Kennedy Administration Had Valid Reason to Wiretap MLK

Robert Kennedy Jr. says he supports his late father’s and uncle’s decision to place Martin Luther King Jr. under surveillance given the political tensions during the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

In an interview a day ahead of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, Kennedy — an independent presidential candidate in this year’s election — told Politico the then-attorney general Robert Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy knew the FBI was “out to ruin King.”

They were “making big bets on King, particularly in organizing the March on Washington,” Kennedy Jr. told Politico.

“They were betting not only the civil rights movement but their own careers. And they knew that Hoover was out to ruin King,” said Robert Kennedy Jr., referring to then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

The Kennedy administration had a legitimate reason to go along with Hoover’s determination to snoop on King, Kennedy Jr. argued, noting Hoover saw King as a dangerous radical with communists in his inner circle.

“There was good reason for them doing that at the time, because J. Edgar Hoover was out to destroy Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement and Hoover said to them that Martin Luther King’s chief was a communist,” Kennedy Jr. told Politico.

“My father gave permission to Hoover to wiretap them so he could prove that his suspicions about King were either right or wrong. I think, politically, they had to do it.”

Kennedy Jr., a lawyer and anti-vaccine activist, has tried in his campaign to reach out to Black voters and other racial minorities that typically lean Democrat, Politico noted, adding some of his relatives are speaking out against his candidacy and that some of his views appeal to the right.

Angela Stanton-King, a former Republican congressional candidate and supporter of former President Donald Trump, now works for Kennedy’s campaign, Politico reported.

Government records have shown the FBI engaged in a sustained campaign of surveillance and harassment targeting the civil rights movement — including sending King a letter suggesting he should kill himself.

In his interview with Politico, Kennedy Jr. said his father and uncle would have known about Hoover’s hostility to civil rights organizations, and that Hoover was “a racist” who “left no doubt where he stood on those issues.”

Kennedy Jr. added he believed his uncle as president — assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963 — would have fired Hoover in a second term, Politico reported, and also said he believed President Kennedy would have alerted King to the eavesdropping in a private conversation.