John Bolton said his intelligence protection will be revoked

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On his first day in office, President Trump not only revoked the security clearance of his former National Security Adviser John Bolton, but also his protection by the US Secret Service.

It wasn’t the first time Trump had stripped the adviser-turned-critic of intelligence details. In September 2019, after Trump ousted Bolton from his post, he suspended protection within hours. Bolton was subsequently secured by former President Joe Biden.

In a statement to USA TODAY, Bolton said he was “disappointed but not surprised” that Trump had decided to revoke the protections.

“Regardless of my criticism of President Biden’s national security policies, he nevertheless made the decision to extend that protection to me in 2021. “The Justice Department filed criminal charges against an Iranian Revolutionary Guard official in 2022 for attempting to hire an assassin. me.”

Bolton said the threat “remains today,” pointing to an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump before the 2024 election that was revealed by Manhattan federal prosecutors in November.

“The American people can judge for themselves which president made the right call,” Bolton said.

Bolton received a call Monday night and was informed that his Secret Service protection would end at noon Tuesday, according to his office.

As part of a stream of executive orders issued on his first day, Trump also revoked the security clearances of 51 former intelligence officials and Bolton for allegedly coordinating with the 2020 Biden campaign by signing a letter to discredit the emails found on a laptop owned by Hunter Biden.

“The signers of the letter falsely suggested that the news story was part of a Russian disinformation campaign,” the executive order said.

According to documents obtained by CBS’s “60 Minutes” through one Request for Freedom of Information Act with the Secret Service, the cost of protecting two former Trump national security advisers, including Bolton, was $12,280,324 for one year.

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is the White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal