Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) on Monday blasted comments from presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in which he defended the government’s surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr.
“The racist campaign to spy on Martin Luther King, Jr in an effort to discredit the civil rights movement and stifle America’s march toward racial equality is indefensible,” Thompson, the former chair of the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, said in a statement first given to The Hill.
“Attempting to justify or whitewash it in any way is just the latest attempt by extremists in our political system to rewrite history. We can’t allow this dangerous rhetoric to stand and we must call it out clearly when we see it,” he continued, referencing comments by GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley in which she downplayed the role of slavery in the Civil War and remarks by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last year suggesting there were some benefits to slavery.
Thompson’s comments came a day after Kennedy Jr., who is running an independent campaign for the White House, argued there was a reasonable justification for the FBI to wiretap the civil rights leader.
The surveillance campaign was done by the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover but was authorized by Kennedy’s father, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, with the authority of then-President John F. Kennedy.
The younger Robert Kennedy argued his family had little political choice but to authorize the surveillance given Hoover’s insistence and political power.
“They were betting not only the civil rights movement but their own careers. And they knew that Hoover was out to ruin King,” Kennedy told Politico in the interview.
“There was good reason for them doing that at the time because J. Edgar Hoover was out to destroy Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement and Hoover said to them that Martin Luther King’s chief was a communist,” Kennedy said.
“My father gave permission to Hoover to wiretap them so he could prove that his suspicions about King were either right or wrong,” he said. “I think, politically, they had to do it.”
Kennedy Jr. has been polling in double digits, with Democrats in particular worrying he could draw enough votes to hurt President Biden in a general election. But there are still questions about whether Kennedy Jr. will qualify to make it on the ballot in enough states in November.