Matt McBride
In 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated while campaigning for president by Sirhan Sirhan, a Jordanian who sought revenge on RFK for his support of Israel. The attack shocked the nation and prompted the US Secret Service to begin providing protection details to major presidential candidates.
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This year, Kennedy’s son and namesake, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.- or RFK Jr. for short – is running as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president against incumbent President Joe Biden. His run has Americans remembering his father’s assassination 55 years ago. If anybody serves as a reminder that major presidential candidates need protection details, it’s RFK, Jr.
However, RFK, Jr. tweeted out this morning that Joe Biden will not allow his political challenger to have Secret Service protection. This decision is to be expected, given Biden’s penchant for using the force of government to go after his political enemies, just as dusty Third World dictators do.
Note that RFK, Jr. is not saying here that the decision came from Kimberly Cheatle, who serves as the current director of the Secret Service. Normally, Cheatle would be the one to make the final determination as to whether or not a presidential candidate meets the requirements for a security details. Nope, the decision came from Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Cheatle’s top boss at DHS.
Biden will not grant RFK, Jr. Secret Service protection… because doing so would make RFK, Jr. appear as a legitimate challenger to Biden for the Democratic nomination. The longer President Biden can withhold a protection detail from his challenger, the longer he can make RFK, Jr. appear as a “fringe candidate.”
If anything proves that the decision to place RFK, Jr. at risk of his life for opposing Joe Biden is political, it’s that this decision did not come from Cheatle, it came from Biden’s lackey Mayorkas.
