Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended his father’s decision while U.S. attorney general to tap civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.’s phone lines, describing the move as a “political” calculation.
The unlikely 2024 candidate told Politico during a campaign stop in Atlanta on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day that “there were good reasons” for Robert F. Kennedy to authorize the wiretaps of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
“J. “Edgar Hoover wanted to destroy Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement and Hoover told them that Martin Luther King’s boss was a communist,” Kennedy Jr., 69, told the outlet.
“My father gave Hoover permission to tap his phones so he could prove his suspicions about King were right or wrong,” he added. “I think, politically, they had to do it.”
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended his father’s decision, as U.S. attorney general, to wiretap civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s. ERIK S LESSER/EPA- EFE/Shutterstock The 2024 candidate, during a campaign event in Atlanta on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, told Politico that “there were good reasons” for Robert F. Kennedy to let the FBI intervene in the preacher. . AP
The comments clash with the environmental lawyer and vaccine skeptic’s effort to present himself as an unwavering defender of Americans’ civil liberties and critic of federal intelligence agencies that abuse their authority.
RFK Jr. has previously said that the CIA was behind the assassination of his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, and argued that the man convicted of murdering his father, Palestinian terrorist Sirhan Sirhan, is innocent and should be brought to justice. conditional freedom.
Last May, Kennedy Jr. told Fox News host Sean Hannity that the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of the 35th president on the orders of his successor, Lyndon Johnson, covered up key evidence.
“My father gave Hoover permission to tap his phones so he could prove his suspicions about King were right or wrong,” Kennedy Jr. said. “I think, politically, they had to do it.” Bettmann/CORBIS
“When Congress, 10 years later, investigated the crime with much more evidence than the Warren Commission had at its disposal, it discovered that yes, it was a plot. It was a conspiracy [and] There were several people involved,” RFK Jr. said at the time.
In June 2018, the younger Kennedy told the Washington Post that he visited Sirhan in prison after reviewing police and autopsy reports on his father’s murder and speaking to several witnesses, saying he was “disturbed by what he had seen.” “.
“I was worried that the wrong person might have been convicted of killing my father,” he said at the time. “My father was the police chief in this country. I think he would have been upset that someone was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit.”
Under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Hoover’s FBI targeted Martin Luther King Jr. through its internal counterintelligence program, but was unable to prove communist ties. Everett/Shutterstock
John F. Kennedy was shot to death while driving through Dallas in the presidential motorcade on November 22, 1963, while Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on November 4. April. , 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 internal counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO), but was unable to prove any communist links.
Robert F. Kennedy was shot to death at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles following a campaign speech in June 1968 during his bid for the presidency. AP
While acknowledging that Hoover was “racist” and likely would have been fired if JFK had won re-election in 1964, Kennedy Jr. expressed less suspicion about the FBI’s motives for spying on MLK Jr.
At the time of the Baptist minister’s rise, the Kennedy administration was “making big bets on King, particularly in organizing the March on Washington,” RFK Jr. also told Politico.
“They were betting not only on the civil rights movement but also on their own careers. And they knew Hoover wanted to ruin King,” he said, noting that the clerical man was associated with several former 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 across six battleground states. AP
Kennedy Jr. added that he believed his uncle privately informed Martin Luther King Jr. about the FBI wiretaps.
He headlined his Sunday campaign event alongside Angela Stanton-King, a former Republican congressional candidate in Georgia who received a pardon from former President Donald Trump in February 2020 but now works for Kennedy Jr.’s campaign.
A New York Times poll in November showed Kennedy was about 10 percentage points behind Trump and President Biden in a hypothetical three-way race across six battleground states.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn