Trump revokes security details for former advisers Pompeo and Hook amid ongoing Iran threats

01/27/2025 / By Belle Carter

President Donald Trump revoked the Secret Service protection for two of his former top advisers, Mike Pompeo and Brian Hook, despite warnings from the Biden administration about ongoing threats from Iran.
The decision to revoke security details for Pompeo and Hook, who played key roles in Trump’s aggressive policies toward Iran, comes amid a complex relationship between Trump and his former officials.
The security details were initially granted due to credible threats from Iran, stemming from the advisers’ roles in the Trump administration’s hardline policies, including the 2020 drone strike that killed Qassim Suleimani.
Pompeo’s stance on Trump has shifted since the 2021 Capitol riot, initially supporting the former president but later legitimizing legal challenges against him. Pompeo’s comments about the indictment have raised tensions with Trump.

President Donald J. Trump has revoked the security details of two of his former top advisers, Mike Pompeo and Brian Hook, despite claims from the former President Joe Biden’s administration that both men face ongoing threats from Iran due to their roles in Trump’s policies toward the Middle Eastern nation.

The decision, confirmed by multiple sources on Thursday, Jan. 23, comes just days after Trump removed the Secret Service protection of his former national security adviser, John Bolton, who has been a vocal critic of the president.

The security details for Pompeo and Hook were initially granted due to credible threats from Iran, stemming from their roles in the Trump administration’s hardline policies toward the Islamic Republic. Most notably, both men were key architects of the 2020 drone strike that killed Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s powerful paramilitary leader. The assassination of Suleimani, a figure revered in Iran, escalated tensions between the two nations and led to repeated threats against Trump and his top officials.

The Biden administration had continued to provide security for Pompeo and Hook, citing ongoing threats. A person familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the Biden team had briefed Trump’s transition team about the risks.

“The threat level remains the same,” said Bolton in an interview, referencing recent warnings he received from government agencies.

Trump, however, defended his decision, telling reporters: “When you have protection, you can’t have it for the rest of your life.” He added, “There are risks to everything.”

Pompeo’s shifting stance on Trump

The revocation of Pompeo’s security detail comes amid a complicated relationship between the former secretary of state and Trump. Pompeo, who served as Trump’s top diplomat, initially supported the former president following the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot. However, he later appeared to legitimize the legal challenges against Trump, including the indictment by special prosecutor Jack Smith over the handling of classified documents.

In 2023, Pompeo commented on the indictment, saying, “If the allegations are true, and there are lots of indications that they are, President Trump had classified documents where he shouldn’t have had them, and then when allowed to return them, he chose not to do that for whatever reason.”

However, Pompeo seemed to backtrack on that stance after Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, calling Smith’s cases a “gross abuse of power and politicization of the Justice Department” in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

Trump, for his part, has expressed frustration with Pompeo, suggesting in a recent Fox News interview with Sean Hannity that Pompeo was the reason he did not release files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy during his first term. (Related: Trump REJECTS Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley for positions in his second cabinet.)

Bolton’s tell-all and the broader implications

Bolton, who has been a fierce critic of Trump since leaving the administration, had his security detail revoked earlier this week. Bolton’s tell-all memoir, which criticized Trump’s foreign policy decisions, was cited in the executive order revoking his security clearance. Trump has accused Bolton of seeking to profit from sensitive information.

The decision to revoke security details for Bolton, Pompeo and Hook has drawn criticism from some national security experts. Dr. Charles Kupperman, who served as Bolton’s deputy national security adviser, warned that the move “will have a chilling effect on [Trump’s] emerging national security team.”

He added, “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.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, expressed concern about the decision, particularly given the known threats from Iran.

“We know that there have been known threats made by the government of Iran against him,” Rounds said. “I don’t know what the recommendations were that were given to the president as to why he would take the security item away.”

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