It’s common knowledge that politics is a dirty game.
Underhanded deals and attempts to smear opponents’ reputations are all too common.
Negative attack ads aimed at tarnishing a rival’s image have become par for the course.
We are even familiar with voter suppression tactics, gerrymandering districts, and other unethical means to try to gain an unfair advantage at the polls.
But the Biden administration takes hitting below the belt to a whole new level.
Not only has the Biden administration blessed the multi-pronged lawfare attack on the presumptive Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, using far-left Democrat DAs in New York and Georgia as well as a special prosecutor bringing federal cases, but it has also refused to provide independent presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the Secret Service protection afforded to all major presidential candidates.
Earlier this month, Kennedy issued an urgent plea to the public to help convince the Biden administration to provide him with Secret Service security after an intruder broke into his house, not once but twice, returning after the police released him the first time. Kennedy said he has faced multiple security threats on the campaign trail and at his home.
RFK Jr: “Another intruder broke into my house this week and then returned to my house again shortly after the police released him. President Biden has made the historic decision to deny me a Secret Service detail. I’m the only one in history whose request has ever been denied.” pic.twitter.com/oWaKvIX43b
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) May 14, 2024
In the May 5 post on the social media platform X, Kennedy included a petition asking for support for signatures on a simple sentence: “I agree RFK Jr. should receive Secret Service protection.”
Should RFK Jr have Secret Service protection?
As most Americans know — or should — the Kennedy family has been uniquely impacted by political violence and assassination. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, by Lee Harvey Oswald.
Just five years later, in June 1968, JFK’s younger brother and the father of RFK Jr. himself, Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. senator at the time, was assassinated in the now-closed Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California Democratic presidential primary.
He was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian man with Jordanian citizenship.
In a nearly three-minute campaign video shared on social media, Kennedy recounted another terrifying incident that occurred last month when an armed intruder “using false US Marshall badges and phony federal ID and carrying an arsenal in his backpack,” attempted to approach him at a speech in Los Angeles, “a short distance from where my dad was assassinated,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy pointed out that “every presidential candidate since the 1970s who has asked for Secret Service protection has received it,” going on to list a number of presidential candidates.
He pointed out that former President Barack Obama received Secret Service protection two years before the election,
“However, President Biden has made the historic decision to deny me a Secret Service detail,” Kennedy said, adding, “I’m the only one in history whose request has ever been denied.”
(Kennedy didn’t mention it, but Donald Trump received Secret Service protection as early as November 2015 when he was still only the front-runner in a crowded field for the Republican nomination, as CNN reported at the time. Ben Carson, another GOP contender considered at particular risk because he’s black, also received it.)
Kennedy went on to say that while he is not concerned for his own safety, he does have concerns about the safety of his family and bystanders if another serious attempt is made on him.
But he added that he is mostly troubled by the “weaponization of federal law enforcement agencies to serve political agendas.”
“It’s not right for the president to provide protection for his family and political favorites while denying it to political rivals,” he said.
Kennedy called the decision to deny him protection a “naked political calculation” based on the fact that the Secret Service had concluded that Kennedy was at a “heightened threat level.”
“During his first week as attorney general, my father assembled all the Department of Justice senior prosecutors to tell them that he would not tolerate any politicization of law enforcement,” Kennedy said.
“President Biden displays a bust of my father in the Oval Office, but he seems to have forgotten this critical tenet of American democracy,” he added.
In October, Kennedy faced another threat when, according to his campaign, a man was arrested twice after attempting to break into his home in Los Angeles, the Hill reported.
In July, CNN fact checked Kennedy’s request for Secret Service protection, pointing out that only major candidates in a presidential race normally receive such protection.
Since the assassination of my father in 1968, candidates for president are provided Secret Service protection. But not me.
Typical turnaround time for pro forma protection requests from presidential candidates is 14-days. After 88-days of no response and after several…
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 28, 2023
According to CNN, “only then-Senator Barack Obama, who faced unique threats as a Black man with a realistic chance to become president, was granted Secret Service protection as early in a campaign as Kennedy [was] seeking it” at the time.
However, almost one year later, the situation has changed considerably, but the White House’s stance has not.
Kennedy is no longer just another long-shot primary candidate — he is now polling at 13 percent as a legitimate independent contender in a three-way national race, according to NBC News.
While still behind Biden and Trump, that level of support suggests he has a plausible, if slim, path to victory, and yet the Biden administration has not made provisions to protect him from harm.
Additionally, the apparent security risks Kennedy faces are more serious based on the repeated incidents of armed intruders trying to break into his house and accost him on the campaign trail. His family’s tragic history also cannot be ignored when weighing potential threats.
By refusing to provide Secret Service protection to Kennedy, the Biden administration likely aims to push him out of the race due to concerns about security or the inability to pay for private security.
Kennedy told Fox News in March that he had already racked up a $1.4 million in expenses having to pay for private security.
But should something happen to this presidential contender whose family has already lost two members to political assassins, the blame will lie squarely on this administration’s shoulders.
We have seen political shenanigans and dirty tactics.
But this is the first time we have seen an administration willing to play Russian roulette with a man’s life just for a share of 13 points.
