Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was already facing difficult questions about his unprecedented appearances with vulnerable Republican incumbents, which grew even more controversial two weeks ago when the public learned that he has used military planes as part of his election-season efforts to help GOP candidates.

Late last week, however, RFK Jr. confronted a different plane-related controversy. The Wall Street Journal reported:

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. received more than $250,000 worth of free flights to Fiji and Greece as well as use of a vacation home in Washington, D.C. All were gifts from Gavin de Becker, a security consultant and supporter.

The 2025 gifts were reported by Kennedy in his annual financial ethics disclosure, which was amended this week and obtained by The Wall Street Journal through a records request. They included a nearly $45,000 roundtrip airfare to Greece and almost $97,000 in roundtrip flights to Fiji where de Becker owns a compound.

The Department of Health and Human Services made no effort to push back against the reporting, instead saying that the secretary worked with ethics officials on his disclosures and complied with the relevant ethics rules.

That might very well be true, though it doesn’t negate the fact that the nation’s highly controversial health secretary has clearly benefited from the remarkable generosity of one of his biggest campaign contributors (never mind that Kennedy is wealthy enough to pay for his own vacation flights, as those same financial disclosure documents indicated).

The same day as the Journal’s report ran, Bloomberg News separately reported that a Kennedy-linked nonprofit organization recently approached companies with a pitch that sounded as if it were selling access to federal officials. From the report:

Ahead of the MAHA Summit on Sept. 29, a menu of sponsorship options was circulated to companies and consultants with various tiers of support, according to people familiar with the solicitations who weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The highest level, quoted at $300,000 to some prospective sponsors, guaranteed a speaking slot at the event “with meaningful input on the panel composition and topic” as well as a “private dinner for 30 guests” with Kennedy and Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The Bloomberg report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, added that the event’s presenter, MAHA Center, “is part of a web of interconnected groups run by Tony Lyons, Kennedy’s longtime book publisher. Lyons co-founded a political action committee that supported Kennedy’s failed 2024 presidential bid and is now affiliated with several organizations leading the Make America Healthy Again movement, including a PAC and nonprofits.”

HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard said in a written statement that department officials listed as speakers “were not involved in the planning or sponsorship activities for the MAHA Summit and were not aware of the sponsorship arrangements described.”

The summit, it’s worth emphasizing for context, is next week and is unrelated to the event where Kennedy spoke last week, when he assured a conspiratorial audience that federal agencies were advancing investigations into, among other things, “chemtrails.”

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