Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended his father’s decision while the US attorney general tapped civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., calling the move a “political” calculation.
The long-shot 2024 candidate told Politico during a campaign stop in Atlanta on Martin Luther King Jr. night. Day that “there was good reason” for Robert F. Kennedy to authorize FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
“J. Edgar Hoover wanted to destroy Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement and Hoover told them that the leader Martin Luther King was a Communist,” Kennedy Jr., 69, told the outlet.
“My father gave Hoover permission to wiretap them so he could prove that his suspicions about King were right or wrong,” he added. “I think, politically, they had to.”
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended his father’s decision as US attorney general to wiretap civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s. ERIK S LESSER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Long-term 2024 candidate during a campaign stop in Atlanta on Martin Luther King Jr. night. Day told Politico that “there was good reason” for Robert F. Kennedy to allow the FBI to wiretap the preacher. AP
The statement ran counter to efforts by the environmental lawyer and vaccine skeptic to position himself as a staunch champion of American civil liberties — and a critic of federal intelligence agencies that abuse their power.
RFK Jr. previously said the CIA was behind the assassination of his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, and argued that the man convicted of killing his father, Palestinian terrorist Sirhan Sirhan, was innocent and should be freed.
Last May, Kennedy Jr. told Fox News host Sean Hannity that the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of the 35th president at the behest of his successor, Lyndon Johnson, withheld important evidence.
“My father gave Hoover permission to wiretap them so he could prove that his suspicions about King were right or wrong,” Kennedy Jr. said. “I think, politically, they have to.” Bettmann/CORBIS
“When Congress, 10 years later, investigated the crime with more evidence than the Warren Commission had, Congress found that, yes, it was a plot. It was a conspiracy [and] there are many people involved,” said RFK Jr. at that time.
In June 2018, the younger Kennedy told the Washington Post that he visited Sirhan in prison after reviewing the police and autopsy reports on his father’s killing and speaking with several witnesses, saying he was “disturbed by what I saw.”
“I am disturbed that the wrong person may have been convicted of killing my father,” he said at the time. “My father is the chief law enforcement officer in this country. I think it would bother him if someone was put in prison for a crime they didn’t commit.”
Under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Hoover’s FBI targeted Martin Luther King Jr. through its domestic counterintelligence program but could not prove communist links. Everett/Shutterstock
John F. Kennedy was shot and killed while driving through Dallas in the presidential motorcade on November 22, 1963, while Martin Luther King Jr. killed by James Earl Ray on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. on April 4, 1968.
Two months and one day later, on June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy — then a senator from New York — was shot dead at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after claiming victory in the California Democratic presidential primary.
Under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Hoover’s FBI targeted Martin Luther King Jr. through its domestic counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) but could not prove any communist links.
Robert F. Kennedy was shot dead at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles following a campaign speech in June 1968 while he was running for president. AP
Despite admitting that Hoover was “a racist” and likely would have gotten the ax if JFK had won re-election in 1964, Kennedy Jr. expressed less suspicion about the FBI’s motives for wiretapping MLK Jr.
At the time of the Baptist minister’s rise, the Kennedy administration “made a big bet on King, especially in organizing the March on Washington,” RFK Jr. also told Politico.
“They risked not only the civil rights movement but their own careers. And they knew that Hoover was intent on damaging King,” he said, pointing out that the man of the cloth was linked to several ex-Communists.
A New York Times poll in November showed Kennedy Jr. about 10 percentage points behind Trump and President Biden in a hypothetical three-way race for six battleground states. AP
Kennedy Jr. added that he believed his uncle personally informed Martin Luther King Jr. about the FBI wiretap.
He headlined his Sunday campaign event with Angela Stanton-King, a former GOP congressional candidate in Georgia who received a pardon from former President Donald Trump in February 2020 but now works for the Kennedy Jr. campaign.
A New York Times poll in November showed Kennedy about 10 percentage points behind Trump and President Biden in a hypothetical three-way race for six battleground states.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
