Trump Revokes Pompeo’s Security Detail

Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testifies before the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party in Washington on Jan. 30, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

President Donald Trump has revoked former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s security detail.

Trump explained the move on Jan. 23.

“When you have protection, you can’t have it for the rest of your life,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “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.”

Additionally, Trump revoked the security detail of former special envoy for Iran Brian Hook, who served in the first Trump administration.

They both lost their security detail on Jan. 22.

This comes days after Trump removed Hook, who briefly led the second Trump transition’s State Department group, from the Wilson Center.

“Our first day in the White House is not over yet! My Presidential Personnel Office is actively in the process of identifying and removing over a thousand Presidential Appointees from the previous Administration, who are not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again,” posted Trump on Truth Social on Jan. 21.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Hook and CAVPAC, a political action committee founded by Pompeo, for comment.

After Trump won the election, he said that Pompeo, along with his former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, would not serve again in his second administration.

Trump ending Pompeo and Hook’s security details comes a day after the president revoked the Secret Service protection of former National Security adviser John Bolton who, like Pompeo and Hook, was granted protection initially for being under threat by Iran.

“I am disappointed but not surprised that President Trump has decided to terminate the protection previously provided by the United States Secret Service,” Bolton wrote in a post on X on Jan. 21.

“Notwithstanding my criticisms of President [Joe] Biden’s national-security policies, he nonetheless made the decision to extend that protection to me in 2021.”

Bolton said he is still under threat.

“The Justice Department filed criminal charges against an Iranian Revolutionary Guard official in 2022 for attempting to hire a hit man to target me,” he said.

“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.”

Bolton, Hook, and Pompeo were key figures behind the first Trump administration’s hawkish posture toward the Iranian regime in what the administration called a “maximum pressure” campaign that included the United States withdrawing from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal, in 2018.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.