Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s 2021 tweet about the death of baseball legend Hank Aaron after he received a COVID-19 vaccine was just "pointing out facts," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, argued Thursday during a GOP-led hearing on government censorship by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
"When you look at Mr. Kennedy's tweet, there was nothing there that was factually inaccurate. Hank Aaron, real person, great American, passed away after he got the vaccine. Pointing out, just pointing out facts," Jordan said in opening remarks while discussing an email the White House sent to Twitter to request Kennedy's tweet be taken down.
Kennedy in 2021 tweeted: "Hank Aaron's tragic death is part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly closely following administration of COVID vaccines. He received the Moderna vaccine on Jan. 5 to inspire other Black Americans to get the vaccine."
Aaron died at 86, weeks after being vaccinated.
Kennedy, who is running for president as a Democrat, had raised doubts about the safety of vaccines long before the COVID-19 vaccine.
The Democratic presidential candidate appeared before the committee Thursday and said he had been "subjected to this new form of censorship, which is called 'targeted propaganda,' where people apply pejoratives like 'anti-vax.'"
"I've never been anti-vaccine," Kennedy argued. "But everybody in this room probably believes that I have been because that's the prevailing narrative."
He also said other Democrats were seeking to silence him based on his views, and held up a letter signed by 102 Democrats that asked for Kennedy to be disinvited from testifying.
"'I've spent my life in this party. I've devoted my life to the values of this party," he said. "This — 102 people signed this. This itself is evidence of the problem that this hearing was convened to address. This is an attempt to censor a censorship hearing."