Robert F. Kennedy has lost his Secret Service protection after pausing his independent Presidential campaign and backing Donald Trump. President Biden instructed Kennedy be given protection after the attempt on Trump’s life in Pennsylvania in July, but this is now scrapped as he is considered to have withdrawn from the race.
Former Democrat Kennedy appeared on stage with Donald Trump at a rally in Arizona on August 23 and declared that the party’s behavior had driven him to “throw my support to President Trump.” The 70-year-old praised the former President as “phenomenal” and “brilliant,” but family members openly expressed their disappointment. His sister, Kerry Kennedy, accused her brother of betraying “the values that our father and our family hold most dear.”
Mr. Kennedy is the son of US Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of former Democratic President John F. Kennedy – both Democrats. Former President Trump vowed to release “all of the remaining documents pertaining to the assassination of John F Kennedy” if he is re-elected in November, an appeal to Mr. Kennedy who has repeatedly asserted that the CIA was involved in the assassination of his uncle in 1963 and that the evidence for his claim is “overwhelming.”
Additionally, he believes the CIA controls American media and repeated the contention at a campaign event in July. Speaking at a New York City fundraiser, Mr. Kennedy stated that Operation Mockingbird was alive and well and that the head of NPR is a CIA agent.
Operation Mockingbird is an alleged CIA operation from the Cold War in which the US government reportedly recruited journalists to manipulate media coverage.
In New York, Kennedy accused NPR CEO Katherine Maher of working for the intelligence agency, saying this was part of the “systematic takeover of the American press, particularly the liberal media.”
Some commentators have lashed out at Mr. Kennedy, saying ironically, it is he who is propagandizing. Sarah Oates, a propaganda expert from the University of Maryland, said that sowing doubt about trust in major institutions was a “classical technique” aimed at sowing discord in society.