Some Republican lawmakers are weighing in on President Donald Trump’s decision to revoke the personal security details of former senior officials.
They expressed concern over Trump’s recent move to end government-provided protection for Dr. Anthony Fauci, former national security adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and his top aide Brian Hook.
The Biden administration regularly extended their protection following credible threats to the former officials’ lives, but Trump pulled their security detail last week.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said the Senate needs to investigate Trump’s decision due to the real threats against the former senior officials.
“Whether you like Bolton or anybody else, we need to make sure that if you serve in our government and you take a foreign power at the request of the administration, that we do not leave you hanging,” Graham told CNN. “I think that the Senate needs to look at what happened and sit down and figure out what’s the best way forward.
Graham said he believes that security detail should be given to individuals only as needed. He also thinks that revoking protection will make it more difficult to recruit officials in the future.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-Oh.) was asked if Trump should reconsider his decision during an interview with Face the Nation on Sunday,
“Well, I’m obviously very concerned for Mike Pompeo,” Turner said.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, also wants Trump to rethink the move.
“The threat to anyone involved in President Trump’s strike on Qasem Soleimani is persistent. It’s real,” Cotton said during an interview with Fox News. “Iran is committed to vengeance against all of these people.”
Trump has defended his decision to pull their protection.
“When you have protection, you can’t have it for the rest of your life,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Jan. 23. “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.”
During a trip to storm-ravaged North Carolina last week, the president was asked whether he would feel partially responsible if something were to happen to Bolton or Fauci now that they aren’t protected. Trump doubled down on the decision.
“No. No. They all made a lot of money. They can hire their own security too. All the people you’re talking about, they can go out, I can give them some good numbers of very good security people. They can hire their own security. They all made a lot of money. Fauci made a lot of money.”
Trump had criticized Fauci’s leadership during the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Before leaving office, former President Joe Biden offered a preemptive pardon to Fauci. Fauci testified during a House hearing that he faced death threats connected to “COVID-19 conspiracy theories.”
Trump terminated Bolton’s protection after he left his administration in the first term, and Biden later reinstated it.
Bolton was a critic of the Iranian regime and was involved in the United States’ withdrawal in 2018 from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal.
He said he was “disappointed but not surprised” by Trump’s decision.
“That threat remains today, as also demonstrated by the recent arrest of someone trying to arrange for President Trump’s own assassination. The American people can judge for themselves which president made the right call.”
Jackson Richman contributed to this report.
