Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took in $4 million in book advances over the past year from allies in the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement while in office, according to reporting published Sept. 24, 2026. News of the advances first surfaced Wednesday, Sept. 23.
Kennedy’s latest financial disclosure, signed by an HHS ethics official on Sept. 17, lists two advances of $2 million each from Skyhorse Publishing, which is owned by Kennedy’s friend Tony Lyons. One of the planned books is titled “Unsettled Science.”
In a 2024 ethics filing, Kennedy pledged: “I will not engage in writing, editing, marketing or promotional services for any of these books during government service.”
He also promoted one of his older books on social media. The July post on X concerned “The Real Anthony Fauci,” published in 2021, and defied his ethics agreement.
Gifts From a Close Friend
Kennedy’s 2026 financial disclosure forms list $126,500 in free housing at a Washington vacation home owned by Gavin de Becker, a security consultant and Kennedy ally.
The same forms record gifts from de Becker including nearly $45,000 in airfare to Greece and nearly $97,000 in round-trip flights to Fiji, where de Becker has a compound. The flights and the housing together are worth more than a quarter of a million dollars.
De Becker told NPR that Kennedy is his closest friend, that their families vacation together every year, and that the gifts began years before Kennedy joined HHS.
De Becker gave at least $10 million to Kennedy’s 2024 super PAC, and $9.65 million of it was returned. He also wrote “Forbidden Facts,” a Skyhorse book that alleges the government has suppressed information about vaccine-linked brain damage in children.
Money Inside the MAHA Network
Lyons runs Skyhorse and also leads two MAHA groups, the MAHA Center and MAHA Action. Filings show MAHA Action paid Kennedy’s wife, actress Cheryl Hines, $210,000 in consultation fees.
Kathleen Clark, a government ethics specialist at Washington University in St. Louis, told NPR: “It seems very weird that RFK Jr. has accepted $4 million in book advances for two books that he has promised not to write or edit during the time that he’s HHS Secretary.”
Virginia Canter of the Democracy Defenders Fund told NPR the advances and gifts are large enough to raise questions about a prohibited supplement to a federal salary.
An HHS spokesperson said Kennedy “complies with all applicable federal ethics laws, regulations and financial disclosure requirements,” and that he works with career ethics officials so that his gifts, outside activities and other reportable matters are handled properly.
A Disclosure Filed Late
The disclosure was due May 15 and was filed Aug. 13 — 90 days past the deadline, after an extension. It was revised four times in September. HHS ethics officials had approved it, but the separate Office of Government Ethics had not yet signed off.
Keynote Before Anti-Vaccine Allies
The revelations followed Kennedy’s keynote on Thursday, Sept. 17, at a Children’s Health Defense conference in Washington, D.C. “Let me be clear. You have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House,” Kennedy told the crowd.
Minutes before Kennedy spoke, MAHA Institute President Mark Gorton had called vaccines “a public health disaster.”
Kennedy co-founded Children’s Health Defense. The group paid him $326,056 in salary and bonuses in the year before he left its board and legal team to lead HHS. His books with Skyhorse include “The Real Anthony Fauci” and “The Wuhan Cover-Up.”