WASHINGTON — President Trump revoked Mike Pompeo’s Secret Service protection years after Iran threatened to assassinate him, a White House official confirmed to The Post.
Pompeo — who served as Trump’s CIA director and secretary of state — had his security detail pulled on Tuesday, the New York Times first reported. A former top aide, Brian Hook, also had his security detail revoked.
Former administration members usually are not granted Secret Service details after they leave office. But former President Joe Biden had granted Pompeo, Hook and former national security adviser John Bolton top security detail amid ongoing threats from Iran.
“I think there was enough time. We take a job, you take a job, you want to do a job, we’re not going to have security on people for the rest of their lives. Why should we?” Trump told reporters about removing Bolton’s protection Tuesday.
Pompeo has yet to make a public statement on his detail being revoked, but Bolton said that the “threat” from Iran remains and “the American people can judge for themselves which president made the right call.”
The State Department revealed in a 2022 document obtained by the Associated Press that it was paying over $2 million per month to protect Pompeo and Hook.
Pompeo was one of the key figures that Iran wanted to retaliate against for the US killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani in 2020.
In 2022, the Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei’s website published a video depicting an animated Pompeo and Trump being targeted by a remote-controlled robotic weapon that gained control to Trump’s golf course.
A text message in the video then reads, “Soleimani’s murderer and the one who gave the order will pay the price” and the screen cuts to black before Trump and Pompeo are apparently taken out by the weapon.
Trump has been briefed in recent months that Iran had been plotting to assassinate him — and that the threat dates back to his first administration.
“Big threats on my life by Iran. The entire U.S. [sic] Military is watching and waiting,” Trump wrote after the second assassination attempt on his life last summer while the then-presidential candidate was golfing on his Florida course.
“Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again. Not a good situation for anyone.”