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president donald trump revoked former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s Secret Service protection Monday after his inauguration as the 47th president, Bolton told Fox News Digital.
“I am disappointed, but not surprised, that President Trump has decided to end the protection previously provided by the United States Secret Service,” Bolton said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital on Tuesday. “Despite my criticism of President Biden’s national security policies, he made the decision to extend this protection to me in 2021.”
Bolton has faced threats from Iran for years, including an alleged plot to assassinate him in 2021 and the Justice Department later indicting a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the plot in 2022. Trump had fired Bolton from his first administration in 2019. , and Biden had granted him a security detail in 2021.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House about Bolton’s claim, but did not immediately receive a response.
President Donald Trump, right, removed John Bolton, left, from his first administration in 2019. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
“The Department of Justice filed criminal charges against a Iranian Revolutionary Guard Officer in 2022 for trying to hire a hitman to sign me up. That threat remains today, as evidenced by the recent arrest of someone attempting to arrange the assassination of President Trump himself,” Bolton continued in his statement. “The American people can judge for themselves which president make the right call.”
Iranian threats against Bolton were likely prompted by the January 2020 US strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, the Justice Department reported in 2022.
Bolton served as Trump’s national security adviser between 2018 and 2019, before Trump fired him because they “were very much at odds” on policy issues.
“I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed in the White House,” Trump tweeted in 2019. “I strongly disagreed with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and that’s why I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning, I thank John very much for his service, I will appoint a new national security adviser.
President Donald Trump revoked former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s Secret Service protection after his inauguration as the 47th president on Jan. 20, 2025, Bolton said. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
In the years since, Trump has repeatedly criticized Bolton, including claiming he would have caused “World War Six” and calling him “one of the dumbest people in government” in 2023.
Bolton has also taken shots at Trump, claiming in a 2020 interview that Trump lacks “the competence to get the job done.”
John Bolton, pictured here in 2019 while serving as US national security adviser, has faced threats from Iran for years, including an alleged plot to assassinate him in 2021. (STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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“I don’t think he’s fit for office,” Bolton said in 2020. “I don’t think he has the competence to do the job. There’s really no guiding principle that I’ve been able to discern other than what’s good for the re-election of Donald Trump”.
