Tag: Recordings

“But then why have you done it for 10 years?” asked Richardson, who had found a diary listing 37 of her husband’s infidelities.

“I did it because I was being abused at home,” Kennedy replied.

It was just one of more than 60 conversations that President Donald Trump ’s nominee for secretary of health and human services secretly recorded, according to Mother Jones . At least one recording appeared to have been made when Kennedy was in California, a state that requires both parties to consent to a recording, the site reported.

He apparently used the recordings to compile a 60-page affidavit accusing Richardson of violent outbursts, excessive drinking, physical abuse, and threatening suicide in front of their children.

Richardson in turn prepared a previously unreported point-by-point rebuttal, saying Kennedy “has been stealthily tape-recording phone conversations in my home,” according to Mother Jones . She died by suicide in May 2012, without ever filing the rebuttal in court.

In the document, Richardson admitted she had once lost her temper and hit Kennedy, but she denied many of his allegations—including that she had ever talked about killing herself in front of their kids. Her husband was waging a “scorched earth” campaign against her, she said.

She also alleged Kennedy had physically abused her, was abusing prescription medicine, had lied to her about the extent of his infidelity, and was a bad father. She also called him a “sexual deviant” and a sex addict, and said she had texts and photos from his phone related to his affairs.

“I have witnessed Bobby’s obsessive-compulsive need to not only beat but annihilate someone he perceives as an adversary,” she wrote. “He re-jiggers the facts, or makes them up, and rushes to tell as many people as he can so that is the version of reality that gets distributed in people’s minds—classic gaslighting.”

Kennedy did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Mother Jones . The Daily Beast has reached out to Kennedy’s representatives for comment.

According to Vanity Fair , Richardson’s family has always privately believed Kennedy’s behavior contributed to her death. In September 2013, Kennedy’s 2001 “ sex diary ” was leaked to the New York Post .

In the back of a nearly 400-page red notebook, he listed 37 women and, using a scale of 1 to 10, noted which sex acts they’d done. Sixteen of the women were marked as 10s; on one day he recorded a “triple play” with three separate encounters listed as 10, 3 and 2.

The diary laments Kennedy’s struggles with his “lust demons,” and on days he’d managed to resist a sexual temptation, he wrote, “Victory.”

“Despite the terrible things happening in the world, my life is… great,” he wrote in November 2001. “So I’ve been looking for ways to screw it up. I’m like Adam and live in Eden, and I can have everything but the fruit. But the fruit is all I want.”

In an earlier entry he wrote, “It’s not ­misogyny. It’s the opposite! I love them too much.”

At the time of its publication, Kennedy denied the diary existed—though the Post released a photo of it. The Kennedys blamed Richardson’s depression and alcohol abuse for her death. After Kennedy filed for divorce in 2010, his wife began drinking heavily and was arrested twice in two years for driving under the influence.

The recordings obtained by Mother Jones reveal how “distraught” Richardson was over the end of her marriage, according to the magazine. By the time they were made, Kennedy had begun dating actress Cheryl Hines —whom he later married—and the former couple was fighting over custody of their four children.

In the recordings, Richardson sometimes lashed out at Kennedy, who Mother Jones reports was “more circumspect” during the confrontations because he knew he was recording. At one point, Richardson begged Kennedy to sign a custody agreement and asked him to avoid having their 16-year-old son Conor photographed in public with Hines.

Eventually, Richardson’s behavior became so erratic that Kennedy was granted custody of the kids. She had asked to live in the guest house and keep the Kennedy name, which Kennedy refused, according to Vanity Fair . He then tried to avoid paying her child support, according to the magazine.

The Mother Jones report comes just one day after Kennedy’s cousin Caroline Kennedy accused him of being “perverse” and a “predator” who is not qualified to serve as the country’s health secretary.

In a letter urging the Senate not to confirm her cousin, Caroline Kennedy—former President John F. Kennedy ’s only surviving child—wrote he was a recovering heroin addict who had “gone on to misrepresent, lie, and cheat his way through life.”

Kennedy’s Senate confirmation hearings are scheduled to begin Wednesday.

If you or a loved one are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing or texting 988.

Read more at The Daily Beast.