Trump Fires Security Details for Pompeo and Bolton

Remember how Trump insisted he wouldn’t have to take revenge against his enemies? That his success would be his revenge? I even remember writing about this decision and I admired him for taking the high road. I just didn’t anticipate his breaking his word to punish Republicans.

I’m referring to his decisions to cancel the security details of Mike Pompeo (Trump’s Secretary of State in his first term) and John Bolton (National Security Advisor in Trump’s first term). The background story is that after both men left office, they were critical of Trump’s role as president. Just what did Mike Pompeo say? His comments were related to the classified documents that Trump removed to his home:

By all indication, he said, ‘Trump had classified docs when he shouldn’t have had them, and when given the opportunity to return them, he chose not to do that.” Then explaining the gravity of that misdeed, he continued: ‘That’s inconsistent with protecting America’s soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines ... if these allegations are true, some of these were pretty serious, important documents.’

Pompeo even stayed on after January 6, when others were resigning in droves.

John Bolton’s criticisms were much more personal and demeaning. Observers have said that he was put out because President Trump wasn’t taking his advice seriously on foreign policy. In Bolton’s memoir, he had a number of criticisms of the president:

Bolton, who served in Trump's White House in 2018 and 2019, accused the Republican presidential frontrunner of having no political philosophy or coherent policy outlook. If re-elected, Trump could leave the NATO security alliance, curb support to Ukraine despite Russia's 2022 invasion, embolden China to blockade Taiwan and generally pursue isolationism, Bolton warned. 'Trump is unfit to be president,' Bolton wrote in the new foreword to 'The Room Where it Happened,' his account of the 17 months he spent as Trump's national security adviser. 'If his first four years were bad, a second four will be worse.'

Given the exchanges between the two of them, there’s no question that they shared a deep animosity.

President Trump apparently wanted to send the message that he was angry with both Pompeo and Bolton. I think anyone would be upset at the comments that both men made, although I believe Bolton’s remarks were much more insulting than Pompeo’s. Nevertheless, Trump wanted to punish both of them for what he likely perceived as betrayals.

His actions were to cancel the security details of Bolton and Pompeo, which had been assigned to them after they left their positions:

Mr. Trump reportedly has ordered an end to security protection for three former advisers who are living under threat of assassination by Iran. Pray it won’t happen, but what if one of them now gets attacked? John Bolton, a longtime Iran hawk who was Mr. Trump’s national security adviser in 2018 and 2019, said the Secret Service called him on Inauguration Day evening to give him the news. In the summer of 2022, the Justice Department charged a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) with planning to kill Mr. Bolton by attempting ‘to pay individuals in the United States $300,000 to carry out the murder in Washington, D.C. or Maryland.’ [Robert O’Brien had a security detail that was cancelled in December 2023, and an aide, Brian Hook was the third person to have his detail removed.]

Bolton was recently informed that the threat against him has not diminished, and believes the threat is actually an action against the United States. Pompeo was threatened around the same as Bolton.

Apparently, Trump can cancel their security details whenever he chooses. When asked about his decision, this was his response :

‘When you have protection you can’t have it for the rest of your life, do you want to have a large detail of people guarding people for the rest of their lives?’ Trump told reporters in a press conference at the Oval Office on Thursday. He added, 'There’s risks to everything.'

It was noteworthy that he didn’t point out how expensive it was to provide security details:

According to the documents, for a 10-month period, starting Dec. 1, 2021, and ending Sept. 30, 2022, the payroll bills for the U.S. Secret Service to protect Bolton were $4,934,963. For a year-long period starting on Oct. 1, 2021, the payroll bills to protect O'Brien were $5,778,713.

Perhaps he thought referring to the cost to protect these men was a bit unseemly.

I wonder if he’s thought about the message he is sending to his Cabinet—that when their time is up, they’d better keep their mouths shut.

I understand his wanting to take revenge. And I think it was an unwise decision.