Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that his request for Secret Service protection has been denied.
Kennedy’s father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, of New York was assassinated while running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968. The slain senator was the brother of President John F. Kennedy, who had been assasinated in 1963.
“Since the assassination of my father in 1968, candidates for president are provided Secret Service protection. But not me,” Kennedy tweeted.
“Typical turnaround time for pro forma protection requests from presidential candidates is 14-days. After 88-days of no response and after several follow-ups by our campaign, the Biden Administration just denied our request. Secretary Mayorkas: ‘I have determined that Secret Service protection for Robert F Kennedy Jr is not warranted at this time.’ Our campaign’s request included a 67-page report from the world’s leading protection firm, detailing unique and well established security and safety risks aside from commonplace death threats,” Kennedy wrote.
“I’ve been a harsh and vocal critic of Mayorkas as the architect of the humanitarian cataclysm at the southern border. These guys play hardball,” Kennedy said in another tweet.
Kennedy is challenging incumbent President Joe Biden in the Democratic presidential primary, though Biden appears likely to crush the competition and clinch the party’s presidential nomination again. Marianne Williamson is also running in the Democratic primary.
“Major Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates and, within 120 days of the general Presidential election, the spouses of such candidates,” may be protected by the Secret Service according to U.S. law, which elaborates that “the term ‘major Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates’ means those individuals identified as such by the Secretary of Homeland Security after consultation with an advisory committee consisting of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the minority leader of the House of Representatives, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, and one additional member selected by the other members of the committee.”
A copy of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ letter is posted on Kennedy’s campaign website. “Based on the facts and the recommendation of the advisory committee, I have determined that Secret Service protection for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not warranted at this time,” Mayorkas wrote.
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