{"id":1035973,"date":"2024-06-14T22:09:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-14T22:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/?p=1035973"},"modified":"2024-06-14T22:09:02","modified_gmt":"2024-06-14T22:09:02","slug":"icymi-rfk-jr-s-distorted-account-of-evidence-he-provided-in-a-cousins-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/icymi-rfk-jr-s-distorted-account-of-evidence-he-provided-in-a-cousins-case\/","title":{"rendered":"ICYMI: RFK Jr.\u2019s distorted account of evidence he provided in a cousin\u2019s case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Today, in a new fact check, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2024\/06\/14\/rfk-jrs-distorted-account-evidence-he-provided-cousins-case\/\"><em>The Washington Post <\/em><\/a><em>further analyzes how RFK Jr. falsely accused two innocent men of color of murdering a white woman to exonerate his white cousin who was convicted of the crime. The Washington Post found that RFK Jr. \u201cdistorts the story\u201d in his response including in \u201csignificant ways.\u201d&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This fact check follows new reporting from <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/thegrio.com\/2024\/06\/06\/rfk-jr-blasted-for-continuing-to-accuse-black-and-brown-men-of-murder\/\"><em>TheGrio<\/em><\/a><em>, and comes days after RFK Jr. doubled down on his racist rhetoric, tried to justify his past actions, and showed no remorse for ruining two innocent men\u2019s lives in an interview with <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-MdnO88bs7I\"><em>Tasha K<\/em><\/a><em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2024\/06\/14\/rfk-jrs-distorted-account-evidence-he-provided-cousins-case\/\"><strong>Washington Post<\/strong><\/a><strong>: RFK Jr.\u2019s distorted account of evidence he provided in a cousin\u2019s case<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By: Glenn Kessler&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u201c<strong><em>RFK Jr. accused two innocent men, one Black and one of mixed race, of committing a murder<\/em><\/strong> when they were teenagers.\u201d \u2014 Jaime Harrison, Democratic National Committee chair, in a video posted on social media, June 6<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Kennedy responded that the DNC had offered a \u201cdishonest distortion of this story.\u201d Harrison offers opinion in his commentary \u2014 \u201c<strong><em>racism here couldn\u2019t be more bleak<\/em><\/strong>\u201d \u2014 but his factual description of the Skakel case holds up. It\u2019s <strong><em>Kennedy who distorts the story in his response, in both small and significant ways<\/em><\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Kennedy said he was \u201cconvinced\u201d the murderers were Adolph Hasbrouck, 15 at the time of the killing, and Burton \u201cBurr\u201d Tinsley, also 15. \u201c<strong><em>Adolph, a volatile teen from the South Bronx, was African American, six foot three inches tall, and 200 pounds<\/em><\/strong>,\u201d Kennedy wrote.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>As part of his research, Kennedy also interviewed Hasbrouck \u2014 <strong><em>who told him he was not in Belle Haven on the night of the murder<\/em><\/strong> \u2014 and Tinsley. Kennedy concluded in his book that there were inconsistencies in their stories.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Kennedy testified in the 2007 retrial proceeding and, according to a transcript obtained by The Fact Checker, <strong><em>he acknowledged that multiple people he spoke to had no recollection of Hasbrouck and Tinsley being in the neighborhood on the night of Moxley\u2019s murder<\/em><\/strong>. Kennedy acknowledged to the prosecutor that <strong><em>he had told a witness that Hasbrouck\u2019s life \u201cseems too normal and mainstream\u201d<\/em><\/strong> for Bryant\u2019s story to add up and that \u201cthis story is not right.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cIt was a lily White community in a lily White county,\u201d Lawrence Schoenbach, an attorney who represented Hasbrouck when the accusations by Bryant and Kennedy first emerged, said in an interview, speaking on Hasbrouck\u2019s behalf. [&#8230;] \u201cNot a soul there saw anyone Black that night. He would have stood out like a sore thumb.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>\u201c \u2026 two men, one black and one white \u2026\u201d<\/em> <strong><em>This is misleading, possibly in an attempt to show his accusation was not intended to single out people of color or show a preoccupation with tropes connecting race and crime.<\/em><\/strong> Kennedy previously has described Tinsley as Asian or mixed race, not White. In his book, he said the FBI crime lab found two hairs on a forensic sheet used to cover Moxley\u2019s body \u2014 one \u201c<strong><em>possessing Negroid characteristics<\/em><\/strong>\u201d and the other possibly having \u201can Asian DNA profile.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>\u201cThe two men confessed repeatedly to Bryant and a third man that they had committed the crime.\u201d <\/em><strong><em>This is almost certainly false<\/em><\/strong><strong><em>. <\/em><\/strong>[&#8230;] In his book, Kennedy disputes several instances of witnesses claiming that Skakel confessed to the murder, such as an alleged statement that <strong><em>\u2018\u2018I am going to get away with murder; I am a Kennedy.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, in a new fact check, The Washington Post further analyzes how RFK Jr. falsely accused two innocent men of color of murdering a white woman to exonerate his white cousin who was convicted of the crime. The Washington Post found that RFK Jr. \u201cdistorts the story\u201d in his response including in \u201csignificant ways.\u201d&nbsp; This [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":263,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1035973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>ICYMI: RFK Jr.\u2019s distorted account of evidence he provided in a cousin\u2019s case - Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/icymi-rfk-jr-s-distorted-account-of-evidence-he-provided-in-a-cousins-case\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-06-14T22:09:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Claire DePree\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Claire DePree\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/icymi-rfk-jr-s-distorted-account-of-evidence-he-provided-in-a-cousins-case\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/icymi-rfk-jr-s-distorted-account-of-evidence-he-provided-in-a-cousins-case\/\",\"name\":\"ICYMI: RFK Jr.\u2019s distorted account of evidence he provided in a cousin\u2019s case - 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