Trump Foe Says President Put Target on His Back by Revoking His Secret Service Protection

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 18 : National Security Advisor John R. Bolton listens as President Donald J. Trump meets with Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte in the Oval Office at the White House on Thursday, July 18th, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The Washington Post / The Washington Post via Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser-turned-critic John Bolton is gravely concerned he will be killed after having his Secret Service detail terminated.

Bolton said Trump pulled his security detail within hours of taking office, and now he fears he is at greater risk of attack from Iran, a country he has frequently taken a hard line on.

“They called me at about 11:30 p.m. last night, and I was asleep,” said Bolton, who added that he was given around a 12-hour notice, in an interview with the Telegraph Tuesday.

“I don’t remember the exact words, but it was something like: ‘The President has directed that your protection be terminated at noon tomorrow.’”

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Bolton, 76, told the outlet on Tuesday that he is “putting measures in place” after he was informed “as recently as a few days ago” that threats on his life remain high.

Asked if he expects threats to increase without a security detail, Bolton said it was an “inescapable conclusion.”

In 2022, an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps member was charged in a plot to murder him.

Bolton said he believes his protection was unceremoniously revoked as political vengeance for his previous criticisms of Trump.

In a statement to the New York Times, Bolton said he was “disappointed” but “not surprised that President Trump has made this decision.” Bolton served as Trump’s national security adviser from 2018 to 2019 before he was fired.

Bolton addressed his tenure in Trump’s first administration in his 2020 memoir, “If his first four years were bad, a second four will be worse.”

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Trump defended removing Bolton’s detail on Tuesday, declaring that he had “enough time” to make his own protection arrangements.

“We’re not going to have security on people for the rest of their lives,” the president told the White House press pool. He added, “I thought he was a very dumb person, but I used him well.”

However, Trump’s former senior adviser David Urban argued Bolton “should be protected” by the very nature of the job he chose to undertake.

“I don’t know what the intelligence looks like,” Urban said Tuesday on CNN. “If there’s an active threat still on former Ambassador Bolton’s life, I think he should have security.”

He added, “If John Bolton did things in our nation’s defense that put his life at risk, then he should be defended by our nation for as long as it takes.”