Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is under investigation for collecting a whale specimen 20 years ago.

“I received a letter from the National Marine Fisheries Institute saying that they were investigating me for collecting a whale specimen 20 years ago,” the former independent presidential contender reportedly said during a campaign event for former President Donald Trump in Glendale, Arizona, adding that he received the letter “this week.”

Kennedy apparently responded with his own letter, connecting the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) with unusual mortality events (UMEs) in whales and calling for the agency to investigate the matter.

“This is all about the weaponization of our government against political opponents,” he concluded.

Kennedy was likely referring to the spike in deaths among a variety of whales and other species on the East Coast since offshore wind programs were developed. Every few years, the Marine Mammal Commission, which oversees the NMFS, claims there is no connection between the phenomena.

However, when the NMFS has commented on offshore wind projects near Texas, it has warned of potential dangers to whales, The Dallas Express reported. The agency explicitly stated that offshore wind service vehicles could increase the chances of a whale strike and conceded that whales could suffer aural “harassment” from turbine noise.

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While the exact link between aural harassment and whale strikes is understudied (partly because of a lack of understanding about the relationship between aquatic acoustics and whale hearing), some experts believe the two phenomena are strongly related.

Although Kennedy had said the incident occurred two decades ago, it might have been longer, according to a story his daughter Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, 36, described in a 2012 article for Town & Country magazine. She said when she was six, her dad used a chainsaw to decapitate a dead whale that had washed ashore and then bungee-corded it to the family’s car to take it home.

In a moment reminiscent of Mitt Romney‘s family dog getting sick while crated on the roof of their car during a family road trip, Kick said, “Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet. We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”

This is yet another instance of Kennedy recalling events that have led to tremendous media chatter.

RFK Jr. lore is so famous it has become a meme in recent months. The phenomena began in August, when he recalled finding  a young dead bear and deciding to leave it in a bike lane near Central Park to make it look like the cub got hit by a bike in the park, saying, “We thought it would be amusing for whoever found it.”

Stills of Kennedy telling this story to Roseanne Barr have become standard issue on X whenever someone wants to make a joke about something crazy happening or when someone tells a wild but true story.

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