Trump terminates John Bolton’s security detail within hours of taking office

Within hours of taking office, President Donald Trump terminated the Secret Service detail assigned to his former national security adviser John Bolton, Bolton confirmed to CNN on Tuesday.

Bolton, who left Trump’s White House in November 2019, has demanded continued protection by the US Secret Service because of threats against him from Iran. Trump initially rescinded his protection after he left his first-term administration, but President Joe Biden restored it when he took office.

“I am disappointed but not surprised that President Trump has made this decision,” Bolton said in a statement to CNN. “Regardless of my criticism of President Biden’s national security policies, he nevertheless made the decision to again extend Secret Service protection to me in 2021.”

“The Department of Justice filed criminal charges against an Iranian Revolutionary Guard official in 2022 for attempting to hire an assassin to attack me. That threat remains today, as demonstrated by the recent arrest of someone who tried to arrange for President Trump’s own murder. The American people can judge for themselves which president made the right call.”

Bolton, who served in senior national security positions in the Bush administration, has long been known for his hawkish stance on Iran. He strongly opposed the 2015 nuclear deal that placed significant restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from US sanctions, and he urged Trump to withdraw from the deal after he took office.

Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in May 2018, about a month after Bolton was hired as his national security adviser. Trump fired Bolton in September 2019 after saying he “strongly disagreed with many” of Bolton’s positions.

Bolton published a book in 2020 in which he claimed the president was woefully underinformed on foreign policy issues, obsessed with shaping his media legacy, and that Trump was asking the leaders of Ukraine and China to help him win the 2020 election. Trump responded by threatening to jail Bolton and repeating a threat he routinely makes about people who cross him.

After Iranian military officer Qasem Soleimani was assassinated on Trump’s orders in early 2020, the Justice Department said the Iranian government was seeking revenge against senior Trump officials involved in the killing, which included Bolton, even though he was not in the administration at that time. of the fatal strike.

In August 2022, Ministry of Justice charged an Iranian citizen and member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, accusing them of trying to arrange Bolton’s murder. Prosecutors said the plot against Bolton was “likely in retaliation” for Soleimani’s killing.

On Monday, as one of his first acts in office, Trump revoked Bolton’s security clearance — one of dozens of former national security officials who lost their clearances with a signature from the new president.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.

CNN’s Michael Williams contributed to this report.

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