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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. urged a Libertarian congressional candidate in Iowa to drop out of a competitive House race to help Republicans keep control of Congress, according to an audio recording of the conversation obtained by The Washington Post.

During the call, Kennedy said he was acting as a “liaison” with the White House, argued that a Democratic takeover of the House would undermine President Donald Trump’s agenda and suggested that he could help the candidate if he left the race. He also suggested that the candidate could “make an agreement” that would accomplish more than a “symbolic run” for office.

“I can’t go into specifics because there’s legal prohibitions about that,” Kennedy told Rick Stewart, a Libertarian candidate running in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, in a June 11 call. “If it’s something that you want to talk about, you know, you and I can talk about specifics.”

Kennedy’s phone call was at least his second to an Iowa congressional candidate this month, according to Libertarian politicians in the state.

Government ethics experts said Kennedy’s apparent intervention in the Iowa races was unethical and potentially illegal, depending on whether he promised candidates specific favors and whether he made the calls in his capacity as a Cabinet official, among other factors.....

Past Cabinet secretaries have been reprimanded for appearing to wield their influence over electoral battles. Then-Health Secretary Xavier Becerra was reprimanded in 2023 when the Office of Special Counsel, which administers the Hatch Act, found that he had violated the law in advocating at a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute event for the election of Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California).

“The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from using their official authority or influence to affect the outcome of an election,” then-special counsel Henry J. Kerner said at the time.