Trump strips Secret Service protection from ex-adviser Bolton, target of Iran murder plot

US President Donald Trump stripped Secret Service protection on Tuesday from his former national security adviser, John Bolton, who became the target of an Iranian murder plot after he served in the White House.

A spokesperson for Bolton said the Secret Service called Bolton on Monday night and said his security detail would end at noon the next day.

“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 social media post.

Both the White House and the Secret Service declined to comment.

Bolton had harsh words for his former boss after he left his White House job. He called Trump “unfit to be president” in a new edition of his memoir in 2024, in which he also excoriated the Republican as an utterly self-interested man who would punish personal enemies and appease adversaries Russia and China.

The United States charged a member of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps in 2022 with plotting to murder Bolton, who served as Trump’s third national security adviser until he was dismissed in 2019.