(NewsNation) — Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says the Biden administration denied his request for Secret Service protection.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Kennedy said the denial came after a lengthy delay.
“Typical turnaround time for pro forma protection requests from presidential candidates is 14-days,” Kennedy wrote. “After 88-days of no response and after several follow-ups by our campaign, the Biden Administration just denied our request.”
The White House hopeful invoked the assassination of his father, Robert F. Kennedy, who was killed on the presidential campaign trail in 1968. Major presidential candidates and their spouses began receiving protection after his death. Less than five years before his father was killed, Kennedy’s uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas.
“Since the assassination of my father in 1968, candidates for president are provided Secret Service protection. But not me,” he wrote.
Kennedy said he received a message from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that read, “I have determined that Secret Service protection for Robert F Kennedy Jr is not warranted at this time.”
NewsNation has reached out to DHS for comment but has not heard back.
Under federal law, the Secret Service is authorized to protect “major presidential and vice presidential candidates and their spouses within 120 days of a general presidential election.”
The 2024 presidential election is still over 460 days away. However, former Secret Service agent Robert McDonald said it’s not unheard of for candidates to receive protection earlier.
“Many times protection is afforded prior to that 120-day mark,” McDonald, who spent two decades at the agency, told NewsNation in an interview Friday.
McDonald pointed out that former President Barack Obama was provided protection as a candidate in May 2007 — 18 months prior to the election.
Kennedy said his campaign’s request included a 67-page report from the “world’s leading protection firm” that detailed “unique and well-established security and safety risks aside from commonplace death threats.”
The DHS Secretary ultimately determines who meets the major candidate threshold for protection after consulting with an advisory committee.
That advisory committee is comprised of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the minority leader of the House of Representatives, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, and one additional member selected by the other members of the committee.
According to the law enforcement agency’s website, the Secret Service has no role in determining who is considered a “major candidate.”
Recent Democratic presidential primary polls show President Joe Biden in the lead with 65.1% support nationally and Kennedy at 14.9%, according to FiveThirtyEight.