Modern Robert F. Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy (born November 20, 1971) is an American politician and the junior United States senator from New York. He is also currently a candidate for President of the United States in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy, commonly referred to by his initials RFK, was born and raise in Brookline, Massachusetts. He is the seventh of nine children of businessman Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Sr. and philanthropist Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald. All four of his grandparents were the children of immigrants from Ireland. From eighth through tenth grades, Kennedy attended Portsmouth Abbey School, a Benedictine Catholic boarding school for boys in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. He transferred to Milton Academy, in Milton, Massachusetts, for eleventh and twelfth grades. After graduating from Milton in 1989, Kennedy went on to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While at Harvard, he began dating fellow classmate Ethel Skakel. Upon graduating from Harvard in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts in Government, Kennedy went on to the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville, Virginia.

After graduating from UVA Law in 1996 and being admitted to the Virginia Bar Association, he was accepted into the United States Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps. After receiving his commission in the United States Navy and attending The Naval Justice School at Naval Station Newport in Rhode Island, Kennedy was assigned to Trial Service Office West at Naval Station San Diego in California as a trial counsel. Soon after, he married Ethel Skakel. Kennedy later rose to the position of a trial counsel team leader and then assistant chief trial counsel. He left the U.S. Navy after four years of service in 2000 at the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade.

Kennedy then moved to Brooklyn, New York with his wife and soon after, passed the New York Bar Examination. He then applied to join the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York. Upon successfully completing the entire application process, Kennedy was hired and joined the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office's Criminal Division, he was initially assigned to the General Crimes Section, where he learned the various aspects of federal criminal prosecution. Kennedy was later assigned to the Organized Crime and Gangs Section and then the Public Integrity Section.

In late 2005, at his father's encouragement, he decided to run for New York Attorney General as a Democrat. Kennedy went on to win the Democratic primary on September 12, 2006. On November 7, he was elected Attorney General of New York State. On November 2, 2010, Kennedy was re-elected to a second term. On December 3, 2012, he was announced as the nominee for the position of United States Attorney General by the President-elect of the United States, his brother, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. After confirmation by the United States Senate on January 22, 2013, Kennedy resigned from his position as New York Attorney General and became the U.S. Attorney General.

Kennedy resigned from his position as United States Attorney General on January 4, 2016, and announced that he was running for the United States Senate from New York. He went on to win the Democratic primary on June 28, 2016. Kennedy was elected to the U.S. Senate by the voters of New York on November 8, 2016, beating incumbent Republican senator Kenneth Keating. He was sworn into the Senate on January 3, 2017. As a U.S. Senator, Kennedy serves on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the Senate Committee on the  Judiciary and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

He announced on March 22, 2019, that he was forming a presidential exploratory committee. On April 22, 2019, Kennedy officially announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the presidency.