WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has ordered the U.S. Secret Service to conduct independent presidential investigations candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the secretary of Homeland Security said Monday.
Kennedy has no chance of winning the Electoral College votes, let alone the presidency. But his campaign events have drawn large crowds of supporters and people interested in his message.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Biden had ordered protection for Kennedy “both before and after the events of this past weekend.”
The Secret Service is required by law to protect major party presidential and vice presidential candidates and their families for 120 days prior to the general election. Third-party candidates, however, are protected only as needed.
The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged in its 2024 budget statement that applications for candidate protection were coming in earlier than before.
Threats against political candidates are common, but law enforcement officials have said there has been an increase in violent rhetoric since last weekend’s attack on the Trump rally. Mayorkas said both Biden and Trump “are the subject of ongoing threats.”
“We are in a heightened and very dynamic threat environment,” he said.
Immediately famous name and a loyal baseKennedy has the potential to do better than any third-party presidential candidate since Ross Perot in the 1990s. But he did not participate in the first presidential debate on June 27. Both the Biden and Trump campaigns, concerned that he could be a spoiler, bypassed the non-partisan debate committee and agreed to a schedule that effectively left Kennedy out of the picture.
Kennedy, who challenged Biden for the Democratic nomination last year before venturing into an independent bid, has argued that his relatively strong showing in some national polls gives his candidacy weight. Polls during the 2016 presidential campaign regularly put Libertarian Gary Johnson’s support in the high single digits or low double digits, but he ultimately received only about 3% of the vote nationwide.
Trump became the official Republican presidential nominee on Monday after receiving enough delegate votes at the Republican National Convention. He was not seriously injured in the shooting in Pennsylvania over the weekend. There is an independent investigation into the attack.
Mayorkas said Trump’s protections have been enhanced based on the “changing nature of the threats to the former president” and his shift from presumptive nominee to nominee.