A state appellate court has dismissed appeals by a news organization that sought to stop Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from compelling disclosure of an anonymous writer who claimed that Kennedy had participated in a neo-Nazi rally in Germany.
Kennedy petitioned Westchester Supreme Court in 2020 to issue a subpoena against Kos Media, of Oakland, California, to reveal the writer’s name so that he could bring a libel action against the individual.
His petition states that the case was filed here because “at all relevant times (he) has been a resident of Westchester, New York.”
In 2021, Westchester Supreme Court Justice Mary H. Smith found that Kennedy had alleged sufficient facts to indicate a claim for defamation, and thus he was entitled to pre-action discovery. She denied Kos Media’s request for a protective order and issued a subpoena commanding Kos Media to produce records identifying the writer who used the pseudonym DowneastDem.
Daily Kos appealed the decisions.
Daily Kos publishes “community diaries” written by non-staff members who are registered users of the website, founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga stated in a court filing. The diaries typically summarize news articles and provide hyperlinks to the actual news stories.
DowneastDem submitted a story in August 2020 based on a German newspaper’s account of a protest rally. It was  headlined  “Anti-Vaxxer RFK Jr. joins neo-Nazis in massive Berlin ‘Anti-Corona’ Protest.”
The article stated that that Kennedy was among the speakers at an protest organized by extreme right-wing organizations, anti-Semitic conspiracy groups and a neo-Nazi political party.
Kennedy’s petition in the Westchester court states that the article was false. He did not join Neo-Nazis at the Berlin protest and did not speak at the protest. Instead, while right-wing extremists were demonstrating at one location, he was giving a speech at another location, organized by Querdenken, a peaceful democratic movement, at which he decried Nazism and totalitarianism.
Daily Kos claims that Querdenken 711 invited Kennedy to speak in Berlin and that the German government had put the organization on a watch list “because it had become infiltrated and controlled by extreme-right wing neo-Nazis.”
While the Westchester case was pending, Kennedy independently identified Downeast Dem as David Vickrey, of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, and he has sued him in Maine.
Kennedy asked the court to dismiss the Daily Kos appeals. The New York Second Appellate Division agreed on Sept. 10.
The fact that Kennedy has already obtained the relief he sought and that he no longer seeks enforcement of Judge Smith’s orders, the court found the Daily Kos’ appeals “academic.”
In retrospect, it appears that Daily Kos never questioned Kennedy’s right, as a resident of Westchester County, to use Westchester as the proper jurisdiction for his lawsuit.
Kennedy lived in Westchester for many years and then moved to Los Angeles in 2014 to live with his wife, the actress Cheryl Hines.
When Kennedy announced his candidacy for U.S. president in 2023, he claimed New York residency in Katonah. His running mate for vice president listed California as her home, and the U.S. Constitution does not allow presidential and vice presidential candidates from the same state.
Clear Choice, a Democrat political action committee, challenged Kennedy’s claim of New York residency.
Kennedy argued that New York had been his residence continuously since 1964, he has deep ties to the state, and he intends to move back as soon as his wife retires from acting.
Last year, an Albany judge concluded that Kennedy had demonstrated a pattern of borrowing addresses to keep up the appearances of New York residency, and that the Katonah home was “merely a sham address.”
In February, Kennedy was confirmed as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.
