Former National Security Advisor John Bolton said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump had pulled his government security detail, which was put in place by then-president Joe Biden to protect him from assassination threats linked to Iran.
“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 in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
Bolton, a well-known hawk on Iran, had been receiving 24/7 protection from the Secret Service since December 2021. This was after U.S. officials revealed that a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard had tried to hire a hitman in the U.S. to kill him. Bolton’s comments came just weeks after U.S. intelligence reported that Iran had also been plotting to kill Trump himself.
In his post, Bolton made it clear that the danger from Iran is still very real. “The threat against me from Iran remains today,” he said, pointing to a failed plot over the summer by Iranian operatives to kill Trump.
The Secret Service, the Trump transition team, and the National Security Council all declined to comment. Bolton didn’t immediately respond to requests for further details.
Bolton, who was fired by Trump during his first term and later wrote a book about his time in office, is now on bad terms with the former president. On Monday, Trump signed an executive order that stripped security clearances from 50 former senior officials, with Bolton singled out for allegedly revealing sensitive information in his memoir.
Bolton is far from the only ex-Trump administration official still under threat from Iran. Many of them, including former officials involved in the 2020 killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, still receive government protection because Tehran reportedly wants revenge.
It’s unclear if Trump has made any changes to the security arrangements for other former officials, many of whom also have strained relationships with him. Late Monday, Trump fired Brian Hook, his former special envoy to Iran, who was working on the State Department’s transition team. Trump has also regularly criticized two others: former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley.
Requests for comment from Hook, Esper, and Milley went unanswered. The State and Defense Departments, which handle their security, did not immediately reply either.
