(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump has terminated Secret Service protection for his former national security adviser John Bolton, Bolton said in a post on X Tuesday afternoon.
“Notwithstanding my criticisms of President Biden’s national security policies, he nonetheless made the decision to extend that protection to me in 2021. The Justice Department filed criminal charges against an Iranian Revolutionary Guard official in 2022 for attempting to hire a hit man to target me. That threat remains today,” Bolton wrote. “The American people can judge for themselves which President made the right call.”
The White House has not commented on Bolton’s claims.
Bolton worked as Trump’s national security adviser from 2018 to 2019 and was frequently at odds with the president. After he left office, Bolton was vocal about his criticisms of Trump’s policies, including in a 2020 memoir in which he claimed the president was “stunningly uninformed,” ignorant of basic facts and easily manipulated by foreign adversaries.
At the time of the book’s release, Bolton told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz that Trump was “not fit for office” and didn’t have “the competence to carry out the job.”
Trump has lashed out at Bolton since leaving office in social media posts and interviews.
On Monday, he signed an executive order that called for Bolton to lose any security clearance he might still hold.
The executive order accused Bolton of publishing a memoir that “was rife with sensitive information drawn from his time in government,” with the order adding that the book’s publication “created a grave risk that classified material was publicly exposed.”
Bolton has denied disclosing any classified information in the book, and though a federal judge was skeptical of that, no charges were ever filed.
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