His father was assassinated while running for president. His uncle was killed while serving as president.
Yet, the Biden administration has refused to offer Secret Service protection to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who just happens to be challenging the incumbent president for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
Why? CNN insists its because RFK Jr. is not a “major candidate” and that the November 2024 election is too far out.
Kennedy believes it’s a vindictive President Joe Biden who’s to blame.
“The order clearly came from the White House. It was a political decision,” Kennedy told WHO Radio’s Simon Conway over the weekend during a live broadcast at the Iowa State Fair.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas rejected the Kennedy campaign’s request for Secret Service protection, the candidate said, despite ample proof of threats against him. RFK Jr. said he provided a 68-page report arguing for protection.
“We’ve had extensive conversations with the Secret Service themselves and they were extraordinarily supportive of me getting Secret Service protection. They said they thought it would happen from 10 days to 14 days, and then they went dark for 88 days,” Kennedy said on the radio show.
He said Mayorkas wrote him a brief letter saying he didn’t think RFK Jr. was entitled to Secret Service guards.
Jonathan Wackrow, a CNN law enforcement analyst and former Secret Service agent told the news outlet Kennedy “just doesn’t meet the criteria.
“He’s not a major presidential candidate. You can make as many request as you want; unless you meet that criteria that have been set forth, it’s just not unwarranted,” Wackrow said.
Kennedy is indeed trailing Biden by north of 50 percentage points in several national polls. But he’s grabbed double-digit support in a number of surveys. He’s definitely an irritant to the Biden re-election machine.
More so, RFK Jr. is a prominent member of one of the most renowned families in U.S. politics — a family forever stained by the blood of assassination. His uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was murdered in office in November 1963. His father, Bobby Kennedy, JFK’s attorney general, was a U.S. Senator from New York and a leading candidate for president when he was assassinated in Los Angeles during the 1968 campaign.
Bobby Kennedy’s assassination led to the revisions on Secret Service policy, widening protection for presidential candidates.
RFK Jr.’s uncle, Ted Kennedy, was granted Secret Service protection long before he was a declared candidate for president in 1980. He was preparing to challenge President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, at the time.
“There was tremendous personal antipathy between him and Jimmy Carter, yet Carter had the, I guess, the class to make sure [Ted Kennedy] was provided Secret Service protection,” RFK Jr. told Conway.
In short, Kennedy is not just any candidate, regardless of how he’s polling. There’s a history that he and his supporters say cannot be ignored.
Beyond his famous name, he has been the target of disdain and threats for his outspoken criticism of the rushed COVID vaccines. Kennedy has taken positions loathed by the leading Democrat presidential candidate and many of this supporters.
“Mr. Kennedy has met all criteria for protection. The only conceivable reason he is being denied is because of a conscious decision by the White House to deny him security and damn the consequences,” RFK Jr.’s campaign manager Dennis Kucinich said in a statement.
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “RFKJr” by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and “The Iowa State Fair” is by The Iowa State Fair.
