Do Presidential Candidates Get Secret Service? RFK Jr. Denied Protection

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is blasting the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security, claiming that he has not received protection even though certain stipulations are associated with them.

Kennedy, a candidate who has been accused of promoting conspiracy theories and who arguably poses the greatest inter-party challenge to incumbent President Joe Biden, tweeted Friday that all candidates have received Secret Service protection since his father was assassinated in 1968. "But not me," he added.

"Typical turnaround time for pro forma protection requests from presidential candidates is 14-days," Kennedy tweeted. "After 88-days of no response and after several follow-ups by our campaign, the Biden Administration just denied our request."

The candidate also claimed that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas notified his campaign that Secret Service protection for Kennedy "is not warranted at this time."

"Our campaign's request included a 67-page report from the world's leading protection firm, detailing unique and well established security and safety risks aside from commonplace death threats," Kennedy added.

"The Secret Service doesn't make that decision" about protection, its spokesperson, Anthony Guglielmi, told Newsweek via text.

The Secret Service's website includes a list of stipulations on who it is authorized to protect, and when. That includes presidents, vice presidents, their spouses and families, and children of former presidents aged 16 and under.

Major presidential and vice presidential candidates and their spouses fall under those stipulations, but only within 120 days of a general presidential election. In this case, it would be 120 days prior to the presidential election being held on November 5, 2024.

One recent outlier of that provision was former President Barack Obama, who in May 2007 was granted Secret Service protection at the request of Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois due to the number of threats the Democrat faced in the early months of his campaign.

Obama's challenger in the 2008 election, Republican John McCain, declined protection when offered at the same time, according to ABC News.

The Congressional Research Service, a public policy research institute of the U.S. Congress that operates within the Library of Congress, published a document in April 2000 detailing the origins and stipulations of Secret Service protection.

It alludes to protection being approved by congressional members via legislation following the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles some 55 years ago. That passed legislation, however, does not provide "criteria for determining major candidates in the primary season."

Advisory committee guidelines pinpoint certain candidate plateaus candidates must hit for eligibility of such protection, including the following:

• They are a publicly declared candidate.
• They are actively campaigning nationally and contesting in at least 10 state primaries.
• They are pursuing the nomination of a qualified party, one whose presidential candidate received at least 10 percent of the popular vote in the previous election.
• They are qualified for public matching funds of at least $100,000 and have raised at least $2 million in additional contributions.
• By April 1 of the election year, they've received an average of 5 percent in individual candidate preferences in the most recent national opinion polls by ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN, or have received at least 10 percent of the votes cast for all candidates in two same-day or consecutive primaries or caucuses.

That document also states that "Secret Service protection for primary candidates generally begins shortly after January 1 of the election year," adding that "on occasion, the Secretary of the Treasury has accorded protection to certain candidates earlier than the election year."

U.S. Secret Service provisions are also documented within 18 U.S. Code 3056A, which adds that protectors can carry firearms, make arrests without any warrants for offenses conducted in their presence, and can make arrests for felonies based on "reasonable grounds."

Newsweek reached out to the Kennedy campaign and DHS via email for comment.

Update 07/28/23, 4:49 p.m. ET: This story was updated with comment from the U.S. Secret Service.