Sen. Bernie Sanders Gets Secret Service Protection – Maybe

Reports came out Saturday, January 30, exclaiming that Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders would finally get Secret Service protection. This is certainly great news, and protection for the senator is long overdue.

Sen. Sanders more than meets the qualifications to receive Secret Service protection, and he certainly needs it, what with a potential assassination attempt already under his belt. There’s only one problem with that news…

Unverified Does Not Equal Fact

Every single media report announcing that Sen. Sanders is “confirmed” to be getting protection is based off of a single, unsourced – and therefore unverifiable – tweet. Calls for the author of the Tweet to provide a source have been ignored. That alone is suspect at best, but if you add this to the fact that the tweet comes from a Fox News employee, well, you can pretty much be assured that it’s a faux fact at best.

The person who tweeted the “news” about Sen. Sanders is Ed Henry, Fox News’ Chief White House Correspondent.

That a media outlet as respectable as The Hill decided to quote that tweet, and then report on it as if it were a fact without actually checking the facts is disappointing – and if it did, not adding the fact check to their story makes them look bad.

What’s The Real Sen. Sanders Story?

The real news is that while yes, the Sanders Campaign did indeed request Secret Service protection, it has not yet been granted according to the two media reports from outlets that actually decided to fact check the tweet – CNN and CBS. Except, even their reports are conflicting.

According to CNN, Marsha Catron confirmed that Sen. Sanders applied for protection, and that the congressional advisory committee and the Department of Homeland Security are reviewing the application. The report notes that even before last week’s request landed on the DHS desk,

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told CNN that Sanders would likely get the protection based on his crowd sizes.”

From the other side of the spectrum is the CBS report, which partially contradicts the CNN report.

CBS notes that while it’s true that Sec. Johnson must approve the application after conferring with the committees as described by CNN, Catron spoke to CBS to say,

The Secret Service, however, says a Sanders security detail is not imminent.”

So which is it? Will the Secret Service protect Sen. Sanders or not? Sen. Sanders’ crows sizes are huge, and they dwarf those of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.).

Yes, Maybe… No, Maybe…

Well, the original information about the protection comes from a Fox News employee, making it suspect. Many Fox News employees can’t even spell the word “truth” let alone speak anything truth related. Scratch any media reports that confirmed the story based only on that Tweet, and it leaves us with the conflicting CNN and CBS reports.

If we believe the DHS spokesperson, Catron, then no, Sanders isn’t getting protection anytime soon, which doesn’t make sense since someone’s already tried to kill him at his Las Vegas, Nevada campaign office.

According to the Secret Service, Title 18 of the United States Code Section 3056 (a)(7), Sec. Jeh Johnson meets with the Congressional Committee, and they make the decision together. If we listen to Sec. Johnson’s quote, Sen. Sanders will indeed get protection.

On the other hand, the Congressional Committee is made up of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Minority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and one other person whom the above mentioned name – currently unknown in this case.

There’s not a single Sanders supporter in the bunch, is there? Given that Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ben Carson have secret service protection, that Sen. Sanders doesn’t is an insult to his campaign.

Featured Image by Photo by Phil Roeder and Erik Drost via Flickr/CC by 2.0