Democrats’ victories in the midterm elections have renewed calls for impeachment of prominent members of the Trump administration, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy signaled Monday that he intends to press ahead with his agenda. Speaking at a MAHA Action event, he argued that Senate Republicans had lost leverage over him following the elections and welcomed new White House chief of staff Stephen Miller as “a friend of our movement,” according to The Washington Post.
“I don’t think anything is going to get in our way now,” Kennedy said.
If impeached and convicted or replaced by President Trump, though, RFK’s removal would leave much of his agenda unfinished, such as establishing a federal definition for ultra-processed foods, creating a mandatory notification of self-GRAS ingredient determinations and overseeing the broader phaseout of synthetic dyes.
Democrats’ renewed calls for RFK removal
Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., who is expected to serve as House Oversight Committee chairman, specifically called out RFK Jr as a target for impeachment when the new Congress convenes in 2027, according to NBC News.
“The thing about what RFK Jr has done to HHS, what he’s done to vaccinations in this country, I think, is horrific as far as impeachment goes,” he said.
Other prominent lawmakers, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. James Clyburn, D-SC, have either explicitly called for Kennedy’s impeachment or said they are open to the idea.
“The bottom line is we need a secretary of HHS who is concerned about the health and well-being of our kids and all Americans, not involved in crazy conspiracy theories,” Sanders said, according to USA Today.
HHS has pushed back against criticism, releasing a statement from HHS spokesperson Grace Jamison, who said Kennedy has “delivered the most sweeping public health reforms in modern history,” and that “threats of impeachment will not distract him from delivering for the American people.”
An earlier impeachment effort
Organizations and lawmakers have called for Kennedy’s impeachment since 2025, and last December, Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., filed a resolution to impeach the HHS secretary. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., was an original cosponsor of the resolution.
If the House takes no further action before the current Congress ends, the resolution would need to be reintroduced in the next Congress. That would have to come from a different lawmaker, as Stevens lost in the Michigan Democratic primary for US Senate to Abdul El-Sayed.
Only two cabinet members have been impeached in the nation’s history: Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876 and Homeland Security Sec Alejandro Mayorkas in 2024.
Impeachment would require a majority of votes in the House, while a conviction requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate. One US Senate race is still outstanding (Alaska), but if Democrats win it, they will end up with a 56-seat majority caucus, which is still 11 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict.
If the Senate does secure the requisite votes to convict, then the official is removed from office.
Impeachment standards
Conviction requires Congress to show the official is guilty of “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Stand Up For Science, a group calling for Kennedy’s impeachment, argues that the threshold has been met on several counts.
“During his brief tenure, Kennedy has continued a years long disinformation campaign promoting pseudo-science that has resulted in preventable deaths, the disruption of the world’s preeminent biomedical research ecosystem, violation of medical data privacy statutes and regulations, billions of dollars in economic losses, removal of public data, ethical and research misconduct in the production of government reports, the adoption of public health policies and guidelines that are in direct opposition of scientific evidence, and the unlawful termination of thousands of dedicated public servants,” the group argues on its website.
Its petition to remove Kennedy has 24,829 signatures to date.
In addition to its arguments about Kennedy’s gutting of the CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee, cuts in funding to vaccine research, as well as other science-related complaints, the group notes that Kennedy has made changes that negatively impact the food system.
Separately, food-safety experts have warned that staffing cuts at FDA and other federal agencies could weaken inspections, laboratory work and outbreak investigations.
