Was the “Worm” Leak to The New York Times Illegal?
By Louis Conte, Headline Editor, The Kennedy Beacon
We all have had some fun with the news delivered by Susanne Craig at The New York Times that independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was diagnosed with a parasitic worm in his brain over twelve years ago.
There have been a lot of jokes about the worm, and even an actress played the worm in an at times hilarious skit on Saturday Night Live.
Kennedy has had some fun with it as well and has used self-deprecating humor to address the situation, appearing for a surprise comedic turn at The LA Forum on #KillTony. Admitting he wasn’t a comic, he said to the gathered crowd, “A brain worm wrote some jokes for me.”
Kennedy’s approach to the “worm issue” demonstrates his honesty with the electorate about his flaws. Kennedy has opened his soul to us – warts, worms, and all.
Kennedy has openly discussed his past addiction to alcohol and drugs. His message of recovery has resonated and given people hope. Well, that parasitic worm is just something else that Kennedy has overcome.
A man who defeats parasites should do just fine against Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
I am sure that Craig over at the Times will frantically dig into the health histories of the other public officials and eventually uncover parasitic fauna lurking in digestive tracts and nervous systems of Democrats and Republicans all across America.
The Times might have to finally embrace Ivermectin.
In commenting on the Times article, Leila Fadel at NPR sympathetically noted, “It sounds pretty shocking, but it turns out he's far from alone. Over a billion people worldwide currently have parasitic worms somewhere in their body, according to the World Health Organization…RFK Jr. says he's fine and has no long-term consequences.”
But I found myself wondering: how did Craig acquire this unique bit of Kennedy health information?
That is an interesting issue.
It turns out that Craig found out about the worm in a deposition that Kennedy gave during divorce proceedings with his deceased ex-wife Mary Richardson Kennedy in Westchester County, NY.
That gave me pause. In my previous career, I was responsible for managing public access to government documents for a governmental subdivision for Westchester County government. I recall that some documents are never to be released to the public.
Among those documents that are never to be released are matters pertaining to divorce proceedings:
Divorce records are not public in New York, per Domestic Relations Law Section 235.
The Kennedy divorce documents should be held under lock and key in the offices of the Westchester County Clerk, Democrat Tim Idoni.
How did the deposition that Kennedy gave in that divorce deposition twelve years ago end up in the hands of the Times?
I did some research and found out that the records can only be released to the parties. That excludes the Times from asking a judge to give them access.
Craig notes that the Kennedy Campaign declined to provide the Times with his health records.
So how does Craig just happen to have sealed court documents that she is restricted from accessing by New York State law?
It may well be that the Times came by the divorce documents by illegal means. It is understood from case law that the Times can publish articles based on source documents that came to them illegally.
However, legal behavior is not necessarily ethical behavior.
The person or persons who gave the documents to the Times may have run afoul of the following New York State Penal Laws.
Here are those laws:
S 175.20 Tampering with public records in the second degree.
A person is guilty of tampering with public records in the second degree when, knowing that he does not have the authority of anyone entitled to grant it, he knowingly removes, mutilates, destroys, conceals, makes a false entry in or falsely alters any record or other written instrument filed with, deposited in, or otherwise constituting a record of a public office or public servant.
Tampering with public records in the second degree is a Class A misdemeanor.
S 175.25 Tampering with public records in the first degree.
A person is guilty of tampering with public records in the first degree when, knowing that he does not have the authority of anyone entitled to grant it, and with intent to defraud, he knowingly removes, mutilates, destroys, conceals, makes a false entry in or falsely alters any record or other written instrument filed with, deposited in, or otherwise constituting a record of a public office or public servant.
Tampering with public records in the first degree is a class D felony.
On Monday, I met with law enforcement officials in Westchester County who believe that Kennedy may be the victim of felony crimes.
If so, the Times will have yet another black mark plastered on its already tainted record.
The worm has turned.
A dead worm in the brain was funny in some respects, but we are continuing our investigation.
This morning's story in WAPO about Joe Biden's aneurysms -- 2 of them -- was written in a voice of reverential awe. And while I too must admire Biden's resilience, the contrast between the authorial voice in that piece and the snide and snarky tone used by the NYT's Craig to disclose RFK's "brain worm" was striking.
Ironically (if predictably) the piece on Biden seemed to say that this particular evidence of Biden's resilience (going back to the 1980s when he was much younger, obviously) is all the more reason he should be re-elected.
Meanwhile the NYT and subsequent pieces on "the worm" implied that this is proof that RFK is not as healthy as he appears. I appreciated NPR's taking the RFK story as a "teachable moment" about the prevalence of parasitic worms throughout the developing world.
Too, outlets repeating the RFK story left readers with the impression that this is something that he recently disclosed out of the blue. Very few of them relay that Craig dug it out of a divorce deposition from 2012. And no one until KB has reported that these records are under seal.
After Politico brought to light the outrageous demands that the Biden administration makes of the legacy media to "save democracy" (read, save Biden), NYT executive editor Joe Kahn last week declared that the role of the press in a free society is not to skew elections by cheerleading a particular candidate, but to help readers make informed choices through straightforward reporting about all candidates. He could demonstrate some good faith by reprimanding if not firing Craig for violating the law.
HIPAA laws aside, anyone who thinks their body doesn't host parasites is uninformed.