Following FBI Director Christopher Wray's often tense appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., reacted to claims from mainly Republicans that the FBI has become politicized and has suppressed or censored information.
In an exchange with Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., Wray claimed the bureau's focus is on "malign foreign disinformation," meaning "foreign hostile actors who engage in covert efforts on social media platforms."
Johnson interjected that a federal judge in his state, Terry Doughty, recently found instead that the FBI "engaged in a massive effort to suppress disfavored conservative speech and blatantly ignored the First Amendment right to free speech."
Kennedy told Fox News that the FBI has a history of being politicized by its top brass, pointing to J. Edgar Hoover's alleged targeting of civil rights groups and figures like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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He suggested federal law enforcement in the past has engaged in "selective targeting" under the Nixon and Bush administrations, adding that in Doughty's ruling that the Biden administration potentially violated the First Amendment via speech suppression, he was personally name-dropped.
"It seems that they're also doing that [selective targeting] to any group now… to groups that are simply political enemies of the current administration or at least of the Biden administration. I was the first person censored by the Biden administration, according to Judge Doughty's decision."
Kennedy said the White House entreated Twitter and Facebook to censor him within two days of President Biden's inauguration.
"I'm still being censored. We know the FBI is involved in that censorship as well as a whole plethora of other federal agencies."
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Kennedy added that, through all the censorship he has weathered, social media sites have been unable to identify factual errors, which he said led to the introduction of a new term-du-jour, "malinformation."
"[That] was information that is true, but would discourage people from complying with [COVID-19] countermeasures, and that's what they applied to me."
"I was not [censored for] misinformation or disinformation. [My content] was being taken down for malinformation."
"Fox News Tonight" host Piers Morgan challenged Kennedy on his tact toward the Russo-Ukraine war, wherein he often cites that Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly agreed to terms in the Minsk Accords, a diplomatic protocol crafted in 2019 in the Belarusian capital.
In February 2022, Putin asserted the Minsk Accords – which intended to curb tensions and fighting in the Russian-separatist-friendly Donbas region of eastern Ukraine -- "do not exist now," according to Agence France Presse.
Kennedy said Putin wanted compromise in the form of the Donbas remaining part of Ukraine while having its ethnic Russian populations protected from any violence from the Zelenskyy government.
"Both Zelenskyy and Putin agreed in April 2022 to do it, to sign that agreement. And then the Russians acted in good faith by beginning to withdraw their troops from the Ukraine," he said.
Morgan said the Russians did not act in good faith when they invaded Ukraine, and disagreed with contentions a "denazification" of the Kyiv government was needed, given that Zelenskyy himself is Jewish.
"President Zelenskyy ran in 2019 on a peace platform: he promised to sign the Minsk Accords. Now, when he got in [office], he suddenly pivoted. Why? Because he was threatened by people -- by ultranationalists within his government -- with death if he made peace with Putin. And because we (America) pressured him not to make peace."
When asked if he trusts Putin in such scenarios, Kennedy remarked as an attorney, he "seldom make[s] agreements with people that I trust 100%."
