Peter Kanellis

speaker

250 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 26 May

Peter Kanellis’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.

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American Scandal · Chappaquiddick | The Weight of the Name | 5 · 26 May 2026 podcast

Dominic Arena, who was the police chief, repeatedly deferred to the Kennedys.

The question would be what might have been lost in that set of transactions, what evidence might have been lost.

And, of course, we can't know.

You know, we can't know what would have been obtainable if there had been a very high-powered sort of forensic investigation that took place at that time.

So, you know, how much did the deference to the Kennedys matter?

I would say it mattered much, much more in terms of public perception than it did in terms of actual forensic evidence that was lost.

You know, I think it was actually much more of a loose combination of loyal hangers-on at many different rungs.

So there were the Gargans and the Markhams.

The Gargans were cousins, first cousins through Rose Kennedy, who had grown up as quasi-members of the Kennedy family, but in many people's estimation, sort of like second-tier members of the Kennedy family, and that they were there to be sort of

friends and playmates and supporters of the Kennedy kids.

So there are loyalists like that within the family.

There also were the sort of practical aides that were part of Kennedy's Senate office and drivers and other figures like that that were quite loyal to him, sort of body men on the ground as the way some people would describe it.

But then there were people like Burke Marshall who was involved.

There were very high-powered academics and scholars and former Justice Department officials who were offering advice as kind of members of the larger Kennedy establishment.

And I do not think that Ted Kennedy, especially traumatized after the election and everything, was able to plug in, take over, manage everything, get everything going.

I think it happened sort of—

organically and perhaps even a little bit haphazardly.

But there were a lot of people involved and there was a lot of intense thinking and strategizing that went on about how to preserve Kennedy's career and how to put Kennedy in the best light.

I mean, among the strategic moves that I think stand out a little in the past is

In Kennedy's speech, his sort of apology speech talking about this, he focuses very heavily on Mary Jo's honor.

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