Kennedy’s campaign first submitted a formal request for Secret Service protection on May 24, 2023, citing heightened threats against the candidate. The request included a comprehensive risk assessment compiled by a private security firm. This 67-page report, referenced in a July 28, 2023, tweet by Kennedy himself, detailed specific threats and emphasized the unique vulnerabilities he faced as a member of the Kennedy family. Despite the comprehensive nature of the report and the candidate’s well-documented risk factors, the USSS and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initially declined to provide protection. That decision had come under scrutiny.

The documents released by the USSS include detailed risk assessments, correspondence between government officials, and internal deliberations. They paint a picture of a candidate whose circumstances were anything but ordinary. Kennedy’s family history of political assassinations—his father, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1968 while running for president, and his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963—served as a critical factor in his campaign’s request for protection. The records note that Kennedy’s public profile as a Democratic challenger to President Joe Biden further exacerbated the risks, drawing both support and hostility from various factions.

One document highlights specific threats identified by the USSS Protective Intelligence Division. These included explicit threats of violence, harassment from known individuals, and alarming behaviors that suggested potential harm. One letter detailed how a known individual had sent Kennedy numerous threatening emails, including messages stating they would “bury” him and make him “suffer.” Another assessment described how a different individual, who had previously sent nonsensical letters to President Biden, redirected their focus to Kennedy’s campaign events. Despite these documented threats, the USSS initially concluded that Kennedy’s circumstances did not meet the threshold for granting protection under DHS guidelines.

The DHS guidelines for authorizing Secret Service protection are rigorous, requiring candidates to meet several criteria. These include polling at 15% or higher in national polls for 30 consecutive days, actively campaigning on a national level, and facing credible threats. In Kennedy’s case, his polling numbers hovered near the threshold but did not consistently meet the benchmark. Additionally, the DHS guidelines emphasized that protection granted more than a year before a general election should only occur under extraordinary circumstances.

The Decision to Grant Protection

In July 2024, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was finally granted Secret Service protection, but not due to the routine evaluation of his candidacy or an increase in threats alone. Instead, the decision came in the wake of an attempted assassination on former President Donald Trump, an event that dramatically shifted the national security landscape and prompted heightened concerns about the safety of public figures. According to the documents released under FOIA, President Joe Biden himself intervened, requesting Secret Service protection for Kennedy as the political climate grew increasingly volatile.

The below documents were released by the Secret Service on December 9, 2024. It appears that multiple attachments were not included in the FOIA release, despite being specifically requested. An appeal has been filed, and the results of that will be posted here, when available.

Document Archive

FOIA Documents Detail Delays and Decisions in Secret Service Protection for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. [48 Pages, 5.2MB]

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The post FOIA Documents Detail Delays and Decisions in Secret Service Protection for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. first appeared on The Black Vault.

The post Uncovering the Secret Service Scandal: The Malia Litman FOIA Case and Revealed Documents first appeared on The Black Vault.

Published in a story by ABC27, on January 20, 2021:

“Before leaving office former President Trump ensured that his extended family would receive protection from the U.S. Secret Service for the next six months, according to several reports.

The Washington Post, citing three people briefed on the plan, reports that Trump instructed the elite team of agents to protect not only himself, his wife Melania, and their son Barron, as provided by federal law, but also 14 extended family members.”

This story, as cited to the Washington Post, was inaccurate. It was later corrected by the Washington Post to only include his grown children.

The first release of records also show internal communication about the inaccurate reporting.

APPEAL: As indicated by the responsive records in the release below, there were references to “attachments.” So it was clear not everything that was requested – was released. An appeal was filed by The Black Vault, and in October of 2022, was granted with additional documents released. Those are available below.

Document Archive

President Donald Trump Order For Secret Service Protection Over His Kids After Leaving Office [14 Pages, 1.2MB]

President Donald Trump Order For Secret Service Protection Over His Kids After Leaving Office – APPEAL RELEASE – [42 Pages, 6MB]

The post President Donald Trump Order For Secret Service Protection Over His Kids After Leaving Office first appeared on The Black Vault.

Below are e-mails that were sent to/from the Congressional Relations / Legislative Relations officer for the U.S. Secret Service.

Document Archive

Keyword: “Clinton” – Secret Service Congressional Relations / Legislative Relations E-Mails, January 1, 2015 – circa August 2016 [53 Pages, 12.5MB]

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The post Secret Service Congressional Relations / Legislative Relations E-Mails first appeared on The Black Vault.

Hypnosis is a state of human consciousness involving focused attention and reduced peripheral awareness and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.

In some cases, hypnosis has been used by law enforcement to help witnesses recall previous events, memories etc.

I thought it would be interesting to see if hypnosis was utilized by the United States Secret Service (USSS), so in June of 2017, I filed a FOIA request that asked for the following:

I respectfully request a copy of records, electronic or otherwise, of any and all policy documents, or records describing the use of HYPNOSIS by your agency.

The below is the only responsive record that came in.

Document Archive

 Hypnosis and the United States Secret Service (USSS), Released March 2019 [4 Pages, 0.6MB]

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The post Hypnosis and the United States Secret Service (USSS) first appeared on The Black Vault.

According to the Washington Post:

The Secret Service has vacated its command post inside Trump Tower in Manhattan following a dispute between the government and President Trump’s company over the terms of a lease for the space, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

Previously, the Secret Service had stationed its command post — which houses supervisors and backup agents on standby in case of an emergency — in a Trump Tower unit one floor below the president’s apartment.

But in early July, the post was relocated to a trailer on the sidewalk, more than 50 floors below, a distance that some security experts worry could hamper the agency that protects the president’s home and family.

The command post appears unlikely to move anytime soon back inside Trump Tower, where the president and his family have rarely gone since moving to the White House. (Continue Reading)

In August of 2017, I filed FOIA requests to uncover some of the behind the scenes information that was circulating. Below, you will find the documents so far received.

Document Archive

 GSA Documents, Released August 2018 [16 Pages, 26MB]

 Secret Service Documents, Released November 2018 [236 Pages, 17.5MB]

Photo Credit: John Taggart/ for The Washington Post to coincide with the excerpt above. All copyrights owned by their respective owners, and are used here for reference.

The post Secret Services Vacates Trump Tower over Lease Dispute, August 2017 first appeared on The Black Vault.

On August 9, 2016, at a rally in Wilmington, N.C., Donald Trump said the following while campaigning to become President of the United States:

“So here, I just wrote this down today. Hillary wants to raise taxes — it’s a comparison. I want to lower them. Hillary wants to expand regulations, which she does bigly. Can you believe that? I will reduce them very, very substantially, could be as much as 70 to 75 percent. Hillary wants to shut down energy production. I want to expand it. Lower electric bills, folks! Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick –if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day, if — if — Hillary gets to put her judges in.”

Immediately, the general public and media were outraged at the possible implication that Trump just threatened or incited violence against Hillary Clinton.

On September 26, 2016, I filed a FOIA request to the United States Secret Service for all records pertaining to this. I asked for:

“…any investigation, report, letter(s), memo(s), email(s), etc. that may pertain to this comment and possibly perceived threat.

I ask that you also include any correspondence between any member of the Trump presidential campaign, attorneys for Mr. Trump, and any communication to/from Donald Trump himself, that pertain to these comments.”

The following are the records received.

Document Archive

United States Secret Service

 Donald Trump’s ‘Second Amendment people’ comment Documents, Released by Secret Service September 20, 2017 [137 Pages, 34.8MB]

After a FOIA Appeal of the above release, I was able to get the Secret Service to release the additional documents:

 Donald Trump’s ‘Second Amendment people’ comment Documents, Released by Secret Service November 8, 2017 [103 Pages, 9.3MB]

 Letter from the Committee of Homeland Security, Bennie G. Thompson, Reporting Donald Trump to the Secret Service [5 Pages, 1.3MB]

The post Donald Trump’s ‘Second Amendment people’ comment first appeared on The Black Vault.

The Electoral College is a process, not a place. The founding fathers established it in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. The Electoral College process consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress.

In December of 2016, after the election, I filed FOIA requests to various agencies to see what, if any threats, were investigated.

I will archive all the responses that come in below.

Document Archive

 United States Secret Service: Threats Against Electoral College Members, October 1, 2016 – November 28, 2016 [7 Pages, 1.3MB]

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/usss/electoralthreats-2016-usss.pdf

The post Threats Against Electoral College Members, 2016 Election Season first appeared on The Black Vault.

Excerpt: 

According to Noah Webster, secret is defined as, “kept from public knowledge or from the knowledge of certain persons•and service is shown to be, employment, especially public employment. This is exactly what the original Secret Service was: an organization of spies which operated during the Civil War at the direction of  the United States Government under the ultimate control of the Honorable Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of State and then Secretary of War.

This use of spies during times of confrontation between factions was not a new idea. In fact the idea may have had divine inspiration, as the Bible, Numbers 13:2 says, “Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, ‘Send out for yourself men so that they may spy out the land of Canaan.” From the time of Moses to Lincoln and to the present day, kings and heads of governments have employed spies, some .well organized and well concealed and some not so well organized and/or controlled.

The original Secret Service appears to have fallen in this “second category for at the conclusion of the Civil War there was concern voiced by members of Congress concerning the role of the Secret Service. General LaFayette Charles Baker was in charge of the War Department Secret Service and was criticized at the  conclusion of the war for lack of control, not reporting to any Bureau, and operating on his own. He responded to his critics by saying that they had no  knowledge of the peculiar and difficult business, (of being a spy and being in charge of an organization of spies). Here again Presidential protection was mentioned in connection with the Secret Service as Baker wrote, ”There was a very ordinary indifference in the mind of Mr. Lincoln in regard to threats of assassination, some of which I communicated to him and on one occasion I carried to Mr. Lincoln two anonymous communications, in which he was threatened with assassination.

It is interesting to note that even though Baker’s Secret Service was not in any way connected with or the forerunner of the Secret Service Division which was to be created in 1865, the man in charge of the Secret Service was concerned with the threats made against a President of the United States.

The Document

 The United States Secret Service:  An Administrative History, 1983 [121 Pages, 60MB]

The post The United States Secret Service:  An Administrative History, 1983 first appeared on The Black Vault.