Federal authorities are investigating the decades-old story concerning Robert F. Kennedy Jr. strapping a dead whale's head to the roof of his vehicle and driving it across state lines.
Kate Silverstein, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association Fisheries, told ABC News on Monday that the agency is investigating Kennedy, confirming comments he told an Arizona crowd this weekend.
"I received a letter from the National Marine Fisheries Institute saying that they were investigating me for collecting a whale specimen 20 years ago," Kennedy said at a campaign event for former President Donald Trump, who he has endorsed after he suspended his own independent presidential campaign.
The story about the whale head resurfaced this year, more than a decade after Kennedy's daughter, Kick Kennedy, told Town and Country in 2012 about how her father handled a dead whale that washed up on the beach in Massachusetts.
She told the magazine the whale washing up on the beach in Hyannis Port happened when she was about 6 years old.
RFK Jr. cut off the whale's head with his chainsaw and tied it to the roof of the family vehicle, driving five hours with it back to their home in Mount Kisko, New York, his daughter, who is now 36 years old, said.
"Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet," Kick Kennedy told the magazine. "We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us."
At least one environmental group called for the NOAA to investigate the issue after the story resurfaced last month.
Silverstein said the agency does not comment on ongoing investigations.