Category: National Politics

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accepted $4 million in book advances and more than $270,000 in gifts over the past year from close allies who are working to advance his Make America Healthy Again agenda, according to his latest financial disclosure form.

Ethics experts said the financial relationships may violate federal rules barring officials from profiting from their government position, and call into question the secretary’s ability to remain independent and impartial.

The advances were for two books that will be published by a company owned by Tony Lyons, a longtime friend and business associate of Kennedy who also sits atop a constellation of MAHA-related entities, including some that accept political contributions and corporate sponsorships from health-related companies.

Cheryl Hines, Kennedy’s wife, accepted $210,000 in consulting fees from MAHA Action, a nonprofit advocacy group also led by Lyons. It rallies supporters of Kennedy’s priorities on weekly broadcasts and backs health-related legislation, including a federal bill to end liability protection for vaccine makers.

In an ethics filing before taking office, Kennedy pledged not to “engage in any writing, editing, or promotional activities” associated with the books, but did not promise to forgo advances.

Ethics experts said the payments related to one book called Unsettled Science raised questions since federal rules say that an official may not “receive compensation from any source other than the government” for writing a book related to his official duties while in office. (The other book is called A Defense of Israel.)

Additionally, the consulting fees to Hines from a group aligned with Kennedy’s priorities “reeks of conflict of interest,” and could appear to be a bribe, said Richard Painter, a White House ethics counsel under President George W. Bush.

“You have a situation like this,” he said, “it just looks horrible.”

Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said that Kennedy “complies with all applicable federal ethics laws, regulations, and financial disclosure requirements.”

She added: “The secretary works with HHS career ethics officials to ensure that his financial interests, gifts, outside activities, and other reportable matters are appropriately disclosed and handled consistent with those requirements.”

Lyons, who is also a lawyer and one of Kennedy’s staunchest defenders, did not respond to an email and text message seeking comment. Hines could not be reached for comment.

The annual financial disclosure finalized last week also showed that Kennedy accepted $126,000 worth of lodging in a Washington, D.C., home owned by Gavin de Becker, a longtime friend and who runs a security firm that specializes in protecting high-profile people.

Previously, de Becker contributed to Kennedy’s presidential campaign and earned money from it to provide a security detail for Kennedy.

De Becker said that he has no business with the federal government, including the Department of Health and Human Services, and that the arrangement reflected their friendship.

“Bobby is among my closest friends in the world for many years, and I’m grateful to be able to host him anytime,” de Becker said. “He has hosted my family at his homes, he’s stayed at my homes, we take family vacations together every year, and did so for years before he was in his current job.”

This past year, the records show that de Becker also paid for nearly $150,000 in airfares for Kennedy: $45,000 for a trip to Greece in July 2025 and nearly $97,000 for a trip to Fiji in November. The flights and book advances were reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

Kedric Payne, a vice president and senior ethics counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, said there were exceptions to federal rules for gifts from friends. But de Becker’s patronage appears to far exceed them, he said.

“Lavish gifts to an official from major political donors don’t get the same benefit of the doubt as dinner from a former classmate,” Payne said. “The public deserves full transparency about the nature of these gifts and any interests the donor has before the government.”

Like Lyons, who has a child with autism, de Becker shares Kennedy’s skepticism about the safety of vaccines and has a longstanding publishing relationship with Lyons.

De Becker has written several books on security but recently began writing about vaccines. His 2025 book, Forbidden Facts: Government Deceit & Suppression About Brain Damage From Childhood Vaccines, was published by Skyhorse, which is owned by Lyons. He has also written the foreword to two books about ketamine, a psychedelic drug that Kennedy has promoted as a therapy for depression.

Kathleen Clark, an expert in government ethics and a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said the gifts created a clear conflict for Kennedy, who oversees an agency reviewing at least one ketamine therapy for approval.

“By accepting such extravagant gifts from someone with a clearly articulated desire for a particular outcome from H.H.S. as a regulatory agency on these issues,” she wrote in an email, “R.F.K. Jr. has completely destroyed any possibility that the public could be confident that any action H.H.S. takes on these issues — childhood vaccines and ketamine — will be based on the public interest, rather than R.F.K. Jr.’s gratitude to and association with this gift giver.”

According to the latest financial filing, Lyons and Kennedy reached an agreement over the book advances in August 2024, the same month that Kennedy dropped his presidential bid and backed President Donald Trump.

Kennedy has written numerous books for Skyhorse Publishing, and worked as a consultant to the company before he became health secretary. In financial disclosures required for his Senate confirmation, Kennedy said he had earned $451,000 as a consultant. Hines also received a $600,000 advance from Skyhorse for her memoir, according to the disclosure.

The disclosure records said that Kennedy would also be paid $10,000 for a third book called America’s Path Back to Moral Leadership and that two of the three books were already written.

As Kennedy prepared to join the Trump administration, Lyons began to build an array of MAHA-allied entities, including the MAHA Center, which recently raised funds by selling corporate sponsorships for the MAHA Summit in Washington next week.

One top sponsor at the event, where senior federal health officials are expected to speak, is the company Grail, which is seeking Food and Drug Administration approval for its multi-cancer blood test. The test performed poorly in detecting cancers in two large studies. Kennedy spoke at last year’s summit.

Lyons also leads the MAHA Institute, which hosted monthly gatherings through much of last year where prospective donors mingled with Kennedy and other top health officials. Many had official business in front of Kennedy’s department.

MAHA Action supports legislation, including a bill introduced this year to end vaccine makers’ protection from traditional liability cases, which are handled in a specialized federal tribunal. Kennedy, who has worked as a plaintiff’s lawyer suing over alleged vaccine injuries, has long denounced the protection granted in a 1986 federal law.

Lyons wears yet another hat as the treasurer of the MAHA political action committee, also allied with Kennedy’s mission, which has raised more than $3 million since January 2025. About one-third of it came from Botanic Tonics, a company founded by Jerry W. Ross, a onetime energy executive who changed his name after pleading guilty to a financial crime.

The New York Times wrote about Ross’ attempts to influence Kennedy and the Trump administration as he successfully sought a prohibition against 7-OH, a gas station drug that competed with his company’s kratom-based drink called Feel Free. Both kratom and 7-OH have drawn widespread complaints over their potential for addiction and severe withdrawal symptoms.

At a Senate hearing last year, Kennedy brushed off criticism from Sen. Christopher S. Murphy (D, Conn.) who accused the secretary of being unduly influenced by MAHA PAC donors.

“Do you have a single instance where the MAHA PAC has taken a position that is not consistent with my values?” Kennedy said. “I don’t run the MAHA PAC. I have no idea who’s contributing to them.”

With oil and gasoline prices spiking amid President Donald Trump’s war with Iran, it was an awkward moment for optimism about the world’s energy situation.

But Energy Secretary Chris Wright brought a sunny message to Houston last week at a gathering of energy ministers from the Group of 20 nations. The Trump administration, he said, was ushering in an era of energy abundance by expanding oil and gas supplies in places like Alaska and Venezuela.

That pitch was often overshadowed by the effects of the conflict in the Middle East. Between lauding oil and gas deals, Wright fielded questions about a damaged Saudi oil pipeline and sparred on social media with Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat, over surging gasoline costs.

Wright acknowledged some tension, though he insisted it was temporary.

“Everyone’s frustrated with higher energy prices,” he said of the mood at the meeting. “But I’ve not met one person who’s comfortable with a nuclear-armed Iran. So everyone gets what we’re doing and this is a critically important mission. It creates dislocations in the short term. But the only answer to short-term dislocations is the energy abundance agenda.”

The situation was familiar for Wright, 61, one of the most forceful defenders of Trump’s vision of “energy dominance.”

Over the past two years, the administration has dismantled efforts to tackle climate change and ended support for wind and solar power. Instead, officials have sought to expand the use of oil, gas, coal, and nuclear energy — sources they see as more reliable. The aim, they say, is to reduce consumer prices, increase U.S. fuel exports, and provide enough electricity to win the artificial intelligence race against China.

Wright, a former fracking executive, has been out front in articulating that shift.

Whereas Trump speaks bluntly about energy — chanting, “Drill, baby, drill”; calling wind turbines ugly; or claiming that global warming is a hoax — Wright gives his arguments an intellectual gloss.

He cites figures on how solar panels underperform during winter storms. Or he argues that global warming is not as big a problem as energy poverty, which he says can only be alleviated with more oil, gas, and coal, even if that means more planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions.

Administration allies say that has made Wright invaluable.

“He has been one of the most consequential picks for energy secretary I’ve seen,” said Thomas J. Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, a research group that promotes fossil fuels. “He’s very experienced, brings a lot of substance, and he articulates President Trump’s vision clearly.”

Critics say Wright’s approach ignores the real risks of climate change and dismisses two of the world’s fastest-growing power sources: wind and solar. They also point to rising energy costs — diesel prices have hit record highs, and electricity rates are still increasing faster than inflation — as evidence that the administration’s policies aren’t working.

During his Senate confirmation hearing last year, Wright appeared to reassure lawmakers that he supported all energy sources, including renewables. He cited his graduate work on solar power and called climate change a “global challenge that we need to solve.”

But since taking office, he has been more combative, deriding wind and solar power as a “parasite” on the grid, blasting Democratic-led states for environmental policies that have shut down coal and gas plants, and accusing Europe of being in thrall to a “climate cult” that is limiting economic growth.

The Energy Department infuriated Democrats in Congress last October by canceling nearly $8 billion in Biden-era clean energy grants located almost entirely in states that didn’t vote for Trump. Asked about the decision at a June congressional hearing, Wright said political considerations had nothing to do with the decisions.

But in court filings in July, administration officials conceded that the cancellations were targeted in states that were represented by Democrats and had voted for Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential nominee, in the 2024 election.

Energy Department officials have said that they recommended that grants be canceled in red and blue states alike but that the decisions on which terminations to announce were made by the White House.

Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico was one of eight Democrats who voted to confirm Wright last year but has since become a vocal critic.

“Of all the Trump nominees, I am particularly disappointed in his conduct,” Heinrich said. “He obviously had an oil and gas history, but he also had a clean energy history. And he just threw all of that away to be a partisan mouthpiece.”

In response, Ben Dietderich, an Energy Department spokesperson, said in a statement, “Secretary Wright doesn’t have preferred energy sources. He just believes in being honest about math and energy security. Unfortunately, many in the climate lobby don’t like that. The Department is proud to have ended energy subtraction policies that lead to higher prices, less energy security and human impoverishment.”

Wright first gained prominence as the founder of Liberty Energy, a Denver-based oil-field services company that was heavily involved in the fracking boom.

Even among oil and gas executives, Wright stood out as an evangelist for fossil fuels. In 2021, as world leaders and even many oil companies were pledging to slash emissions, Wright published a 180-page report criticizing what he saw as a “myopic focus on climate change.”

He argued that people in developing countries still lacked enough energy to enjoy a decent standard of living and that renewables couldn’t replace oil, gas and coal to provide that power.

“At the height of this era when everyone was saying energy policy should just be about climate, Chris Wright was one of the few CEOs that ran oil and gas firms who clearly and vocally spoke out,” said Arjun Murti, a partner at the energy research firm Veriten.

Wright also had a flair for the dramatic. He once drank fracking fluid on video to show it was safe. In 2021, he rented billboards around Denver to heckle The North Face after the company declined to work with an oil firm.

He landed appearances on Fox News and won the job of energy secretary on the recommendation of Harold Hamm, a fellow fracking pioneer and major donor to Trump.

Wright quickly transformed the department. Out were programs to develop novel technologies to fight climate change, like green hydrogen or low-emissions steel. Instead, federal funds went to help utilities finance gas plants, nuclear reactors and transmission lines or upgrade older coal plants, which officials say are essential for meeting rising electricity demand.

Wright also lifted a Biden-era pause on expanding exports of liquefied natural gas, now the nation’s fastest-growing export, and has pressured Europe to ease rules on methane, a potent greenhouse gas, saying they could hurt U.S. exports.

“He brought a whole new attitude to the agency,” said Scott Segal, an energy lobbyist at Bracewell. “It’s all about how do we produce enough energy to support AI and economic growth.”

Some changes have attracted bipartisan support, such as Wright’s promotion of nuclear and geothermal energy, which don’t produce planet-warming emissions. His agency has dangled billions of dollars in loans to kick-start the largest expansion of nuclear power in a generation, while a program to help startups develop small reactors has moved faster than many expected.

Other moves have been more contentious.

To rescue the declining coal industry, an obsession of Trump’s, the Energy Department used emergency powers to keep plants running past their scheduled retirement dates, which could cost ratepayers billions. (This month, a federal judge struck down one such order, saying the agency had overstepped its authority.)

Last year, Wright picked five skeptics of mainstream climate science to write a report arguing that concerns about global warming were overblown. That report prompted furious pushback from hundreds of scientists, who denounced its findings as riddled with errors. A federal judge later ruled that Wright had acted unlawfully by secretly convening the authors.

Wright, who often criticizes wind and solar for not running at all hours, has cut renewable energy programs and renamed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as the National Laboratory of the Rockies. While experts agree that the variability of wind and solar poses real challenges, many say it goes too far to call the sources “worthless.” Texas gets roughly one-third of its power from renewables and has kept costs low.

“It’s borderline petty how anti-renewable this Energy Department is,” said Samantha Gross, a director at the Brookings Institution. “Especially since we’re still building more renewables, particularly solar, than any other form of energy in the U.S. right now.”

Roughly 2,700 staff members have left the agency, which analysts and former employees said could make it difficult to carry out its mission.

Wright’s supporters say he has helped steer the country away from what they saw as the Biden administration’s unrealistic plans to rapidly phase out fossil fuels.

Some say the debate is shifting in his direction. Many states and businesses are backing off ambitious climate targets, and Democrats are less vocal nowadays about climate change. Tech companies are using more natural gas to meet exploding demand for data centers. The International Energy Agency, after some browbeating by Wright, is revising up its projections for how long fossil fuels will stick around.

“There’s been a real shift in how investors and others now talk about energy,” said Travis Fisher, a director of energy and environmental studies at the libertarian Cato Institute who worked with Wright to organize the agency’s climate report. “Climate has become a lot less salient.”

The administration’s strategy faces its biggest test yet with the Iran war. While The New York Times reported that Wright was excluded from the decision to launch the war, he has been busy managing the energy fallout. He often appears on television to discuss U.S. military escorts of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. And he is quick to counter that Democratic-led states face high energy costs because of decisions to close refineries or oppose pipelines.

In the short term, the war and resulting energy shortages have benefited many U.S. suppliers, which are exporting more oil and gas than ever before. But in the long term, some experts and companies worry the chaos could hurt the market for fossil fuels as countries seek to reduce reliance on energy imports.

Wright, for his part, says fossil fuels are too useful to recede anytime soon.

“We will never, ever come remotely close to running out of hydrocarbons, which means you need better technology and innovations to eventually eat into their market share,” Wright said at a Cato event in May.

He said he was excited about recent breakthroughs in areas like fusion. But, he added, “the biggest innovations the rest of my lifetime in energy are almost certainly going to be in oil, gas and coal, because they are what matter.”