President Donald Trump revoked Secret Service protection provided to his onetime national security adviser, John Bolton, within hours of taking office on Monday.
“I am disappointed but not surprised that President Trump has decided to terminate the protection previously provided by the United States Secret Service,” Bolton wrote on X on Tuesday morning. “Notwithstanding my criticisms of President Biden’s national-security policies, he nonetheless made the decision to extend that protection to me in 2021.”
Bolton has had a round-the-clock security detail for years amid threats on his life from Iran. The Department of Justice charged a member of the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in a plot to hire a hitman to kill Bolton in 2022. At the time, officials said the plan was retaliation for the killing of Qassem Suleimani, a top Iranian general, during Trump’s first term.
“That threat remains today, as also demonstrated by the recent arrest of someone trying to arrange for President Trump’s own assassination,” Bolton wrote Tuesday. “The American people can judge for themselves which President made the right call.”
A notorious hawk on Iran, Bolton served in Trump’s first administration, but the then-president fired him after saying the pair had “disagreed strongly” on many things.
Trump confirmed his plans to withdraw Secret Service protection for some in comments to reporters on Tuesday.
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“We’re not going to have security on people for the rest of their lives,” the president said, per The New York Times. “Why should we?”
Trump has also revoked Bolton’s security clearance, as he did for dozens of other former intelligence officials.