OPINION:
Apart from the taxpayer-funded lawfare being waged against former President Donald Trump by Democratic prosecutors in New York, Atlanta and Washington, there is no clearer proof that the Democratic Party has embraced “by any means necessary” as its electoral credo than the politicization of Secret Service protection of President Biden’s presidential rivals.
Not only has Mr. Biden’s Department of Homeland Security denied five requests for Secret Service protection from independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the flimsiest of grounds, but now the Democratic congressman from Mississippi who chaired the kangaroo court Jan. 6 committee is proposing to strip Mr. Trump of his Secret Service detail if he were convicted in any of the politically motivated trials he’s facing.
Never mind that this brazen legislation, championed by Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, has no chance of being enacted by Congress or that the courts would surely enjoin it as unconstitutional if it were. Its sheer coldbloodedness is appalling.
Mr. Thompson knows full well that if any of Mr. Trump’s trials — which the former president correctly calls “witch hunts” — were to end in a prison sentence and he had no Secret Service protection in prison, he would have a target on his back for attack by other inmates. (Think Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murder in the killing of George Floyd, who barely survived a Nov. 24 stabbing in prison in Arizona.)
Such is the Trump Derangement Syndrome that has suffused the Democratic Party. What other possible reason than bloodlust would motivate Mr. Thompson to sponsor such sociopathic legislation — even though he surely knows that it reeks of being an unconstitutional bill of attainder?
The Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School states that courts apply a legal test to determine whether legislation violates the ban on bills of attainder under Article 1, Sections 9 and 10 of the Constitution by determining whether the law “targets specific named or identifiable individuals or groups.”
Mr. Thompson’s Disgraced Former Protectees Act, introduced April 19, includes only one “identifiable individual”: Donald Trump.
Mr. Thompson is the ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, which brings us back to disgraced Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ repeated denial of Secret Service protection for Mr. Kennedy since he announced his candidacy just over a year ago.
Given that the independent presidential hopeful’s father and uncle were both assassinated, it’s beyond appalling that Mr. Biden and Mr. Mayorkas can’t even be shamed into authorizing Secret Service protection for him.
Even many of Mr. Kennedy’s own relatives who have inexplicably endorsed Mr. Biden’s reelection bid over their own kin have asked for a security detail for him — to no avail.
At an April 18 event in Philadelphia at which Mr. Biden was endorsed for reelection by several members of the extended Kennedy clan (including two siblings), the president obliquely alluded to the assassinations. “Your family … has endured such violence,” he said.
If they expected authorization of Secret Service protection as a show of presidential gratitude for turning their backs on their own relative, they were sadly mistaken.
Mr. Mayorkas asserts that Mr. Kennedy doesn’t qualify for Secret Service protection. As recently as March 28, the homeland security chief wrote to the Kennedy campaign: “Based on the facts and the recommendation of the advisory committee, I have determined that Secret Service protection for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not warranted at this time.”
That’s patently false, inasmuch as Mr. Mayorkas and the president have wide latitude in authorizing the protection. You could ask then-President Jimmy Carter, who in 1980 extended it to then-Sen. Ted Kennedy, Mr. Kennedy’s uncle, after he launched an insurgent Democratic primary challenge to Mr. Carter.
It’s as if Mr. Biden and Mr. Mayorkas actually want harm to befall the scion of the legendary political family because they fear his independent candidacy will siphon enough votes away from the incumbent to ensure Mr. Trump’s return to the Oval Office next January.
What is that if not by any means necessary? One thing is certain: It’s not as if Mr. Biden’s spendthrift administration is trying to save federal taxpayer dollars by withholding the protection.
Mr. Kennedy rightly characterizes the repeated denial of protection as the “weaponization of government” and “a political scandal.”
A day after the most recent denial, his attorney, Aaron Siri, in a letter to Mr. Mayorkas, called it “capricious, an abuse of discretion, and clearly politically motivated,” adding:
“If any harm befalls Mr. Kennedy or any other member of the public who may be injured or killed in any incident that arises due to lack of Secret Service protection to the candidate and the deterrent it affords, we will seek to hold you accountable.”
Translation: The president and his lackey Mr. Mayorkas will have blood on their hands.
The Kennedy family members who endorsed Mr. Biden for reelection should retract that endorsement and withhold any further support unless and until Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gets the Secret Service detail he deserves as a presidential candidate.
• Peter Parisi is a former editor for The Washington Times.
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