There is a passage in Olivia Nuzzi’s sorta-memoir, “American Canto,” that, if you look past the poor writing, says something striking. After news of their relationship broke, Nuzzi writes, she received a call. “‘I need you to take a bullet for me,’ the Politician said. ‘Please.’”
In Nuzzi’s telling, the Politician went on: “‘If it’s just sex, I can survive it.’ If it was anything more, he could not.”
One does not need to know details of Nuzzi’s apparent relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to understand that when Vanity Fair and Nuzzi announced last week that they would part ways, she was paying a professional price for personal behavior.
Meanwhile, the other participant in the affair seems to face no consequences.
Meanwhile, the other participant in the affair seems to face no consequences.
Kennedy, the secretary of health and human services, is busy neutering the American public health system. No Republicans have called for him to testify before Congress about the allegations in Nuzzi’s book that he hid drug use during his presidential campaign.
Kennedy isn’t waiting until the storm subsides; he’s simply walking outdoors and doesn’t mind the wind.
None of this is to defend Nuzzi. She promoted a charlatan. For her lapse in ethics, losing her job is getting what she deserves.
But what does it say that Kennedy has faced next to no consequences for his part in what boils down to a sex and drugs scandal? And possibly predicted that if the scandal was simply about sex, he could ride out the storm?
Nuzzi lost her job at New York Magazine last fall after revelations that she had a relationship with Kennedy, whom she had profiled for the magazine. Nuzzi was back in the spotlight recently not just with a plum new role at Vanity Fair and to promote her (widely panned) sorta-memoir but also because her ex-fiance, journalist Ryan Lizza, alleged that she had crossed more ethical boundaries as a journalist.
The lowlights, from Lizza’s telling, are that Nuzzi drafted a strategy memo for Kennedy and that she engaged in “catch-and-kill” missions for him while he campaigned for president. (In non-journalist speak, Lizza alleges that Nuzzi essentially got members of Kennedy’s campaign to divulge information so that she could prevent it from hitting the press.) Lizza also posted that Nuzzi had had an affair with another high-profile person she had written about, former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford. (Nuzzi’s lawyer has referred to Lizza’s allegations as a “harassment campaign” and said in a statement that in her book, “Ms. Nuzzi discusses the only instance in her long career as a journalist in which she had an improper relationship with someone she was covering.”)
To be clear, Nuzzi and Kennedy were not in equivalent positions. Meanwhile, the health and human services secretary ignores reporters’ questions about the affair — and otherwise carries on unscathed. There is no outcry from Republican members of Congress, who instead look the other way lest they risk angering Donald Trump. The split-screen of the respective outcomes illustrates how officials in the Trump administration elude accountability for immoral actions but consequences persist for others outside their gilded club. To be clear, Nuzzi and Kennedy were not in equivalent positions. Kennedy was not a member of the Cabinet when he met Nuzzi and engaged in the alleged affair. It makes sense that there are professional consequences for Nuzzi. She crossed clear ethical lines in journalism and did not disclose her relationship with Kennedy to her editors. We can’t know now whether Kennedy would have been confirmed to his current role had Nuzzi come forward about their relationship or had she spoken out earlier, as she wrote in her book, that Kennedy told her he uses psychedelic drugs. He has said publicly that he has been sober for years. In the past, a series of salacious news stories about a Cabinet official would prompt a resignation or at least an apology. Instead, Kennedy carries on unfazed. It’s the same sort of shamelessness he has shown throughout his career as he has parroted debunked talking points about vaccines causing autism. He displays the same level of gall when changing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance on vaccines despite supposedly having pledged not to do exactly that. Ultimately, Vanity Fair is accountable to its readers and its parent company, Conde Nast. Ending Nuzzi’s contract showed that guardrails still exist in the media as a profession. (Or, at least, that publications will respond when faced with enough public pressure.) But Kennedy’s continued employment in the Trump administration shows that accountability does not exist for him.
Eric Garcia is an author and senior correspondent for The Independent. 
