The US president revoked security protection for his former secretary of state, , and a former top adviser, Brian Hook, despite warnings that both men faced ongoing threats from Iran because of their actions on behalf of Mr. Trump, four people with knowledge of the matter said Thursday.
Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Hook had been involved in an aggressive stance against Iran during Trump’s first presidency, most notably the drone strike that killed powerful Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in early 2020. Mr. Trump also remains under threat because of this action, and his advisers have regularly emphasized the seriousness of the situation in the intervening years between his two terms.
He also withdrew the security men of the US Secret Service of John R. Bolton
The security men of Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Hooks, which were provided by the State Department, were withdrawn on Tuesday, said one of the people briefed on the matter.
A day earlier, Mr. Trump withdrew the security men of the US Secret Service of John R. Bolton, who was the third national security adviser to Mr. Trump and also faces threats.
With the exception of former presidents and their spouses, senior US officials do not automatically receive continued protection. But the intelligence community’s assessment that the level of risk remained for Mr. Pompeo, Hook and Bolton were the basis for the Biden administration to grant it to them. The administration of Mr. Biden had privately briefed the incoming Trump administration on Iran’s ongoing threats against former Trump officials, including Mr. Pompeo, Hook and Bolton, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Mr. Bolton said he had also been personally informed of the threats by the Biden administration.
“Just late last week, two different government representatives, two different government agencies called,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “They said our current assessment is that the threat level remains the same.”
Mr. Trump has publicly stated that he does not want anyone who worked under Mr. Pompeo in his first term. What had happened? Could it be, US officials wonder, that all this happened because a year before the US election Pompeo warned Republicans at the Conservative Political Action Conference that they should not follow “celebrity leaders” with “fragile ‘I’s” who deny to perceive reality’?
