On the 56th anniversary of his father’s assassination, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the unbiased presidential candidate, once more pleaded on Wednesday to be granted Secret Service safety, arguing in an interview on Fox Information that he was at an elevated threat of being focused due to his household historical past.
“I used to be with my dad when he died in Los Angeles in 1968,” mentioned Mr. Kennedy, who was 14 on the time of the taking pictures. He then asserted that the White Home “is concerned on this resolution” to disclaim his requests for Secret Service safety and argued that his marketing campaign was important sufficient to deserve that safety.
A spokesman for the White Home declined to remark.
Mr. Kennedy has made requests for Secret Service safety for greater than a yr, predating his unbiased candidacy. Final July, when he was nonetheless working in opposition to President Biden within the Democratic primaries, he mentioned a request for a Secret Service element had been denied by Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland safety secretary, who has the authority to approve these requests.
Mr. Kennedy has since repeatedly made the request, circulating an internet petition in assist of it, and has been denied every time. In his interview on Wednesday, Mr. Kennedy pointed to a number of incidents that demonstrated his want for extra safety, together with break-ins at his dwelling in California and an episode in September through which an armed man was arrested at a marketing campaign occasion and charged with gun crimes after he tried to fulfill Mr. Kennedy.
Mr. Mayorkas has beforehand mentioned that he has declined Mr. Kennedy’s requests on the suggestion of a panel of prime congressional leaders.
“It’s finally my resolution, however I’ve adopted their suggestion every time,” he mentioned in Might.
Mr. Mayorkas can take into account a number of components in figuring out who ought to obtain safety, and people standards give preferential therapy to major-party candidates. Earlier than Nikki Haley ended her Republican presidential marketing campaign, the congressional panel really helpful that she obtain Secret Service safety, partly for her energy in nationwide polling. The Secret Service additionally notes that “some candidates have acquired safety earlier within the marketing campaign pursuant to presidential memoranda.”
For a candidate within the Democratic or Republican primaries, the polling threshold is 15 % or extra for 30 consecutive days. For an unbiased or third-party candidate, the edge is 20 %. In keeping with Actual Clear Politics, which the rules checklist as one of many polling benchmarks, Mr. Kennedy is polling at a mean of 10 % nationally.
That threshold has prevented most third-party or unbiased candidates from receiving Secret Service safety, with just a few exceptions. George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama, ran as a third-party presidential candidate in 1968 and was granted a Secret Service element by President Lyndon B. Johnson after Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Mr. Kennedy’s father, was killed throughout the Democratic primaries that yr.
The foundations have modified considerably over time. Secret Service safety was considerably expanded for presidential candidates after Senator Kennedy’s demise, however the guidelines have traditionally been restrictive for third-party candidates. Ross Perot, essentially the most distinguished third-party candidate since Wallace, didn’t ask for Secret Service safety throughout his presidential campaigns, so it’s unclear if he would have been eligible.
Mr. Kennedy mentioned on Wednesday that Secret Service safety had been given to candidates “with a lot much less ballot numbers, a lot much less high-risk profiles than I’ve.” In different interviews, Mr. Kennedy has pointed to Jesse Jackson as one instance of somebody with “a tiny fraction of my polling” who acquired a Secret Service element. However Mr. Jackson ran as a Democrat, not an unbiased, and at one level in his 1984 marketing campaign polled at 20 %.
