Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s department has met the growing cost of his security with funding from a pot otherwise designed to safeguard the health and well-being of minorities.
The Department of Health and Human Services expects to have spent $17 million to protect Kennedy, 72, in the 12 months up to October 2026, according to the Wall Street Journal. That figure is up from $10 million the previous fiscal year.
Sources with knowledge of HHS’s spending told the newspaper that the department has “a large pot of discretionary money that it could have tapped” for the extra $7 million Kennedy’s protection is now costing the taxpayer.
Instead, it took the money from around $12 million it had cut from the Office of Minority Health’s budget.
President Ronald Reagan set up that agency in 1986 in response to research that showed Black babies were more likely to die than white babies, and that Black people in the U.S. lived shorter lives than white people.
It has since worked to eliminate racial health inequality in the U.S. by supporting research and policy.
Kennedy is a scion of a white family whose wealth, while it largely sits in private trusts, was last estimated at roughly $1.2 billion in 2015, roughly equivalent to $1.7 billion in 2026.
As a member of the Trump administration, he enjoys heightened security after a failed attack last year prompted him to stop speaking at outdoor events.
His father, Robert F. Kennedy Sr., and uncle, President John F. Kennedy, were both shot dead by assassins in the 1960s.
HHS has justified the cuts to the Office of Minority Health due to new restrictions and priorities for the department’s budget.
In August, it informed roughly 16 educational institutions and nonprofits that it is now focused on “the root causes of infertility and reproductive health conditions,” including low sperm count and erectile dysfunction, according to the Journal.
The Daily Beast has contacted HHS for comment.
