John Bolton reveals, Donald Trump ended my Secret Service protection
Clients often get protection for three, four, or even longer periods of time after they leave the job as a precaution. However, in my situation, it ended a few hours after I resigned,” Bolton said in a special interview with Newsweek. The ambassador also discussed US foreign policy, his previous employment, and his planned “protest vote” for the 2024 election.
In September 2019, after only 17 months on the job, Bolton resigned as National Security Advisor. Trump claimed the retirement was due to a dismissal, although the ambassador insists it was a resignation.
In addition to presidents, first ladies, and foreign dignitaries, the secret service regularly lists as protectors those who have just left high-ranking government jobs. Bolton said that during the Trump-Biden transition, this was the case with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
When asked why the departing president had broken precedent in this particular case, Bolton said, “It was Trump, and he wasn’t very happy that I had resigned.”
Bolton told Newsweek later that day that his Twitter account had also been frozen by the White House. “I mean, talk about dramatic,” he said.
But Bolton said that the FBI invited him to its headquarters and inquired him if he had spoken with President Biden on the possibility of reinstalling his security detail around Thanksgiving 2021.
“Are you serious? Have I contacted the Biden White House? Bolton notified the Bureau. “Why don’t you call the Biden White House and see if that’s appropriate?”
According to Bolton, Biden’s consent to reactivate his security detail was prompted by rising concerns about his safety in light of Iranian threats.
In August 2022, the Department of Justice made public accusations against an Iranian individual who had taken part in a plot to assassinate Bolton in exchange for money. The State Department said last month that it would pay “up to $20 million” for information that led to the culprits, and it was alleged that the motivation for the crime was Bolton’s role in the 2020 assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.
Bolton said that it was past time for the US to take action against Tehran’s threats as evidence of Iranian attempts to assassinate Trump and members of his former entourage continues to accumulate.
He said that the current Biden-Harris administration had given in to the “illusion” that sufficient pressure from Washington would persuade Iran to give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons and let “sweetness and light [to] break out in the Middle East.” The Obama administration also held this idea.
Bolton said that given the regime’s continuous attempts to get WMDs, the US would be “fully justified in using force to preemptively destroy the [nuclear weapons] program.” Questioned further, he said that the United States probably shouldn’t have engaged directly and that its primary goal should be to provide Israel “any kind of help we can to destroy the program.”
Bolton also believes that despite the previous president’s rhetoric on Iran, if Trump is granted a second term, he may propose a deal similar to the 2015 agreement.
“Everything’s a deal for Trump,” said Bolton. “And so I don’t; I don’t think you can rule it out.”
He said that French President Emmanuel Macron attempted to arrange a meeting between Trump and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the 2019 G-7 summit in Biarritz and that this “came within an inch” of happening. Like most of his dealings with Trump, Bolton said he had no idea what the president would do and that he would have quit the next morning had the meeting gone forward.
He continues to believe that Harris would make an excellent president and that she would approach Iran’s foreign policy similarly to Biden.
Russia is betting on Trump’s victory, according to Bolton, since Vladimir Putin “knows how to deal” with the departing president and sees him as “an easy mark.”
Additionally, Bolton criticized Trump’s “24-hour” peace plan for Ukraine, saying the former president would find it hard to concede that the plan will ultimately fail.
“If it wasn’t solved in 24 hours, it wouldn’t be Trump’s fault because it’s never Trump’s fault,” Bolton said. “So it would have to be somebody else’s fault, and I think he would conclude pretty quickly that it wasn’t his friend Vladimir’s fault; it was Zelensky’s.”
Bolton had already said that he would be voting for Dick Cheney in November, expressing his anger at the direction his party has taken under Trump. That being said, Bolton told Newsweek that he was now thinking about casting a less confusing protest vote after the former vice president backed Harris.
Perhaps Ronald Reagan,” Bolton said. “Maybe I should vote for the first presidential candidate I ever worked for, which is Barry Goldwater.”
But Bolton said that if Trump lost in November, the GOP would return to its old glories and that Vance, or whomever else is supposed to be ready to replace him, would probably not be able to replicate the “aberration” that is Trump.
“I think he’s one of a kind, and I don’t think there is Trumpism to leave behind because I don’t think he has a philosophy,” Bolton said. “So it’s sort of like in Star Wars—a disturbance in the force.”
“When he leaves the scene either after defeat this November or whenever it turns out to be, there will be a struggle for the future of the party,” Bolton said. “But I think the Reaganite approach can ultimately prevail.”
