President Trump revoked security protection for his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and a former top aide despite warnings from the Biden administration that both men faced ongoing threats from Iran because of actions they took on Mr. Trump’s behalf, four people with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday.
Mr. Pompeo and the aide, Brian Hook, had been part of an aggressive posture against Iran during the first Trump presidency, most notably the drone strike that killed the powerful Iranian general Qassim Suleimani in early 2020.
Mr. Trump also remains under threat because of General Suleimani’s killing, and his advisers have stressed the seriousness of the situation in the years between his two terms in office. Mr. Trump repeatedly asked for more protection during those years, including seeking military assets for the final months of the campaign because of the threats from Iran. That kind of protection is usually reserved only for a sitting president.
Mr. Trump revoked the State Department security details for Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Hook on Wednesday, soon after he pulled the Secret Service detail for John R. Bolton, his former national security adviser.
Asked by a reporter on Thursday about the decision to revoke Mr. Pompeo’s security detail, Mr. Trump said: “When you have protection, you can’t have it for the rest of your life.”
Other than former presidents and their spouses, senior U.S. officials are not automatically granted ongoing protection. Protection levels are a function of the threat assessment from the intelligence community. The Biden administration had briefed the new administration about continued threats from Iran to former Trump officials, including Mr. Pompeo, Mr. Hook and Mr. Bolton, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the security issue.
Mr. Bolton said he was also personally notified about the threats.
“As recently as the end of last week, two separate government representatives, two separate government agencies called,” he said in an interview. “They said our current assessment is that the threat level remains the same” as in 2022, he said, when a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was charged with an alleged murder plot against Mr. Bolton.
Mr. Hook and a spokesman for Mr. Pompeo declined to comment.
Mr. Trump’s decision in all three cases “will have a chilling effect on his emerging national security team,” said Dr. Charles Kupperman, who served as a deputy national security adviser under Mr. Bolton during Mr. Trump’s first term.
“His new team will face many serious national security decisions that will carry far into the future and their post-government security could easily require long-term security protection based on their recommendations to Trump and the decisions that follow,” Dr. Kupperman said. “Trump’s national security team must provide guidance based on their assessment of what needs to be done to protect America without regard to their personal security.”
Several Republican senators on Capitol Hill either declined to comment or avoided a reporter seeking to ask questions about Mr. Trump’s decision regarding Mr. Pompeo.
Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had terse remarks: “We know that there have been known threats made by the government of Iran against him. I don’t know what the recommendations were that were given to the president as to why he would take the security item away.”
The threat from Iran has been a serious security consideration for U.S. officials. In the fall of 2024, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had his aides warn the Iranians that assassinating a former U.S. government official would be considered an act of war, a former senior administration official said. That warning included Mr. Trump, who complained that Mr. Biden was not doing enough to deter Iran by keeping the warnings private.
Shortly after Election Day in November, the Justice Department filed charges against a man who was allegedly tapped by Iran to carry out a murder-for-hire plot to kill Mr. Trump.
Mr. Bolton parted with the first Trump administration on bad terms, wrote a tell-all book about his tenure and has been deeply critical of Mr. Trump. But it is less clear why the president would order the removal of the security details for Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Hook, who have been supportive of him.
Mr. Pompeo briefly considered running for president himself, and suggested that voters wanted solutions, “not tweets,” an oblique reference to Mr. Trump’s use of social media for rapid-fire posts. But that was about as far as the criticism went. Mr. Pompeo endorsed Mr. Trump in 2024, and was deeply critical of Mr. Biden throughout his presidency.
In an interview with the Fox News host Sean Hannity that aired Wednesday night, Mr. Trump suggested Mr. Pompeo was the reason he did not release files about President John F. Kennedy’s assassination during his first term. People who have spoken with Mr. Pompeo over the past six years were perplexed by that statement and said it wasn’t based in fact.
Nonetheless, Mr. Trump has told people he does not want anyone working for him who worked under Mr. Pompeo in his first term. He removed Mr. Hook as a presidential appointee to the Wilson Center for Scholars via a social media post days ago.
Edward Wong and Maya C. Miller contributed reporting.
