Former national security adviser John Bolton said Tuesday that President Donald Trump has removed his Secret Service protective detail just hours after returning to the White House.
Bolton, who served in the first Trump administration and has since become a critic of the president, has continued to need protection from the Secret Service due to threats from Iran after departing the White House.
Trump initially terminated Bolton's security detail in 2019 after he fired the national security hawk. But former President Joe Biden restored the federal protection after he took office.
"I am disappointed but not surprised that President Trump has made this decision," Bolton told CNN in a statement on Tuesday. "Despite my criticisms of President Biden's national security policies, he made the decision to extend Secret Service protection to me in 2021."
According to the Department of Justice, the Iranian government has been seeking revenge against senior Trump officials for the assassination of military officer Qasem Soleimani, who was killed on Trump's orders in 2020. Prosecutors said Bolton's targeting was "likely in retaliation" for Soleimani's assassination, even though he had left the administration by then.
In 2022, the Justice Department filed criminal charges against an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps member for attempting to hire a hit man to murder Bolton.
"That threat still exists, as shown by the recent arrest of someone trying to orchestrate President Trump's assassination," Bolton said. "The American people can decide for themselves which president made the right call."
Known for his hard-line stance on Iran, Bolton opposed the 2015 nuclear deal that was negotiated during President Barack Obama's second term. The agreement lifted economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for the Islamic republic imposing limits on its nuclear program. Bolton urged Trump to withdraw from the deal after taking office.
Trump withdrew the United States from the deal in May 2018, about a month after Bolton was hired as national security adviser. Citing strong disagreement with many of Bolton's positions, Trump later fired him in September 2019.
In a January 2023 Truth Social post, then-former President Trump said he "found John Bolton to be one of the dumbest people in Government, but, I am proud to say, I used him well."
Bolton previously told Newsweek that Trump "lacked the focus needed to see the strategy through," adding that it was "challenging to hold his attention" on any one issue.
On the first day of his new administration, Trump also signed an executive order to revoke "any active or current security clearances" held by 51 former intelligence officials, including Bolton, who signed on to a letter in 2020 that cast doubt on the origins of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
"Signatories of the letter falsely suggested that the news story was part of a Russian disinformation campaign," the executive order reads.
The list reportedly includes former Obama officials James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, and John Brennan, the onetime CIA director.