Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wants answers regarding the decision that denied Secret Service protection to presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr.
Cruz sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, whom the senator said denied Kennedy protection on July 21 "after eighty-eight days of failing to respond to his either formal request for protection, or follow-ups by his campaign."
The decision to deny Kennedy, running as an independent, the customary Secret Service protection came after the candidate's campaign provided a 67-page report from a leading private security firm detailing serious threats and risks to his safety.
Cruz, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and ranking member of the Subcommittee on The Constitution, demanded answers about why it took 88 days instead of the standard 14 days for the Secret Service to determine that Kennedy didn't require protection. He also demanded justification considering the security lapse when an armed man impersonating a Deputy U.S. Marshal showed up at a Kennedy event.
Kennedy's father was assassinated while running for president in 1968.
"Since your decision to refuse Mr. Kennedy protection and determining 'it [was] not warranted,' an armed man was arrested at one of his campaign events in Los Angeles and subsequently charged with carrying a loaded firearm, carrying a concealed weapon, and impersonating a Deputy United States Marshal," Cruz wrote to Mayorkas in the letter dated Monday.
"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."
Even the Secret Service admitted that Kennedy was at risk for assassination, according to an internal 11-page report disclosed by Judicial Watch, a government accountability nonprofit organization.
"The records also indicated that the Secret Service is aware that Mr. Kennedy has received increased media attention after accusing the Central Intelligence Agency of involvement in the assassination of his uncle, [President] John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and advocating for the release of the individual currently imprisoned for assassinating his father, Robert F. Kennedy, and speaking out against COVID-19 vaccines," wrote Cruz, who demanded answers by Oct. 31.
In July on social media, Kennedy said that despite his father's assassination leading to the Secret Service protecting presidential candidates, that agency denied him that very protection.
"Since the assassination of my father in 1968, candidates for president are provided Secret Service protection. But not me," Kennedy wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
"Typical turnaround time for pro forma protection requests from presidential candidates is 14-days. After 88-days of no response and after several follow-ups by our campaign, the Biden Administration just denied our request."