The Ohio Republican Mike Turner said on Sunday’s Face the Nation he is “very concerned” for former secretary of state Mike Pompeo after Donald Trump revoked his security detail earlier in the week.
Pompeo and his top aide, Brian Hook, who have faced threats from Iran since they took hard-line stances on the Islamic Republic during Trump’s first administration, were told of the loss of protection on Wednesday evening.
Just a day earlier Trump similarly ended protection for his former national security adviser John Bolton, who was fired as national security adviser during Trump’s first term, and became a vocal Trump critic.
Bolton later wrote a book whose publication the White House unsuccessfully sought to block on grounds that it disclosed national security information. Bolton, who has been targeted for assassination by Iran, said in a statement that he was disappointed but not surprised by the decision.
Two senior Republican senators on Sunday urged Trump to rethink his decision to strip personal security to Bolton and Pompeo.
“I would encourage the president to revisit the decision for those people who are being targeted by Iran,” Tom Cotton, chair of the US Senate intelligence committee, told Fox News Sunday.
The United States charged a member of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps in 2022 with plotting to murder Bolton, who served as Trump’s third national security adviser until he was dismissed in 2019.
Iran promised revenge after Trump ordered a drone strike in 2020 that killed General Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, the overseas arm of the elite Revolutionary Guards.
“I’ve reviewed the intelligence in the last few days. The threat to anyone involved in President Donald Trump’s strike (on) Suleimani is persistent. It’s real. Iran is committed to vengeance against all of these people,” Cotton said.
Trump told reporters that the government could not protect people forever and said former officials could pay for security out of their own pockets.
Lindsey Graham, a strong Trump backer, told CNN Trump’s move could make it harder to recruit the right people in the future.
“Whether you like John Bolton or not, that’s not the question for me … We need to make sure that if you serve in our government and you take on a foreign power at the request of the administration that we do not leave you hanging,” he said.
Trump also revoked security clearances for dozens of former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter saying the Hunter Biden laptop saga bore the hallmarks of a “Russian information operation.”
Trump had soured on Pompeo some months ago, saying publicly that he would play no role in his new administration. In a social media post this week, he fired Hook from his presidentially appointed position on the board of the Wilson Center, a think tank.
A representative for Pompeo did not immediately reply to a request for comment, and Hook has not responded to multiple voice and text messages from the AP since Bolton was stripped of his protection on Tuesday.
Asked about the decision to end Pompeo and Hook’s security, Trump replied to reporters: “Do you want to have a large detail of people guarding people for the rest of their lives? I mean, there’s risks to everything.”
According to a March 2022 report to Congress, the State Department said it was paying more than $2m per month to provide 24-hour security to Pompeo and Hook. But later determinations did not give a dollar amount.
The state department told lawmakers that threats against Pompeo and Hook remain “serious and credible” and continue to warrant government-provided security details.
A former senior Biden administration official who was briefed on the matter said Trump administration officials are “well aware” of the “active threats” against the former government officials and called the move “highly irresponsible”.