Cruz says Secret Service should offer RFK Jr. protection

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas demanding answers after the Secret Service denied protection to presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this year.

“I ask that you act swiftly to provide this major presidential candidate the protection that his exceptional circumstance so clearly warrant,” Cruz wrote in the letter.

In July, Kennedy posted online that his request for Secret Service protection had been denied.

He said that since his father’s assassination in 1968, presidential candidates have been provided Secret Service protection. The denial came 88 days after Kennedy’s request. Cruz is asking why it took much longer than “the standard fourteen day turnaround for this type of request.”

An armed man impersonating a U.S. marshal in September was arrested at one of Kennedy’s events in Los Angeles. Kennedy said his security identified the man and apprehended him until Los Angeles police arrived. Police said the man did not brandish the weapon or threaten anyone at the event.

At the time, Kennedy said he is still holding out hope that President Biden would grant him Secret Service protections. Cruz said the arrest should prove the denial for protection is wrong.

“This near assassination attempt hardly came as a surprise given that Mr. Kennedy’s original request for Secret Service protection included a sixty-seven page report from a leading private security firm detailing a myriad of unique and well-established safety risks,” Cruz said in the letter.

The Secret Service is authorized to protect major presidential and vice presidential candidates and their spouses within 120 days of a general presidential election.

In his letter, Cruz asked Mayorkas why other major presidential candidates have received protections earlier than the 120-day mark, “setting a clear precedent for exceptions to the general rule.” There are 383 days until the Nov. 5, 2024, election.

Cruz also asked why the Secret Service acknowledged that Kennedy is “at risk of assassination” solely because of his family’s lineage, if only to deny him protections. Cruz is asking Mayorkas to respond to his questions by the end of the month. Kennedy’s father, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1968 on the Democratic Presidential campaign trail. His uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in a presidential motorcade in 1963.

Mayorkas and an advisory committee of House and Senate leadership determines which candidates are considered “major” candidates.

Kennedy officially launched a campaign as a Democrat running against Biden but switched his candidacy to independent last week.