Assassination target says Trump 'knew exactly what he was doing' by ending security detail

Former Trump official John Bolton isn't buying the explanation from president Donald Trump for the decision to end Secret Service protection for him and other former administration officials who have become critics.

Trump halted security details for his former national security adviser, along with former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and his aide Brian Hook, who have all been targeted by alleged assassination plots by by Iranian nationals, but the newly inaugurated president said they were no longer entitled to costly Secret Service details.

"If you could ask all of us – I'll speak for all of them, I think I can do that," Bolton told CNN. "We'd be delighted to say we'd like to see the protection ended well before the end of our lives. If the threat diminishes, if the threat level remains high – look, it's up to the president, but getting, in my case, getting Secret Service protection is not a perk. It's not something you should want, it was provided by president [Joe] Biden because of threats that have subsequently been documented in a Justice Department criminal charge against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards official trying to hire a hitman against me."

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The Justice Department charged a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, who remains at large abroad, in August with plotting to kill Bolton as revenge for the January 2020 drone strike that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.

"I think they follow the media in Tehran," Bolton said, "and when they see that Mike Pompeo and myself no longer have coverage, given that it's just a few [months] ago now that the federal officials arrested a Pakistani national working for the Iranians, trying to hire assassins to kill president Trump – this is a very real ongoing threat. I was told as recently as the weekend before the inaugural that the threat level remained the same, and I should say, you know, neither I nor any of the other people who are receiving the protection have anything to do with establishing the threat level. That comes from a consensus from the intelligence community."

"So the idea that nobody's entitled to protection for the rest of their lives, except, of course, former presidents is kind of a non-answer to the point," Bolton added. "I think Trump knew exactly what he was doing."

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