Donald Trump likes to tell his supporters that he’s a fighter, a fearless champion who always has their back. Such guarantees, however, apparently do not apply to people who worked for him when they’re threatened by foreign assassins. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and the former Pompeo aide Brian Hook have all been targeted by Trump for political retribution. They are also being targeted by the Iranians, but the regime in Tehran has marked them all for death.
The president may be spoiling for a fight with career bureaucrats and “woke” professors, but when it comes to Iranian assassins, he is willing to walk away from men who carried out his orders. Milley, Bolton, Pompeo, and Hook all served in Trump’s first administration—he appointed them to their posts—and they were part of the Trump national-security team when the United States killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a strike in January 2020. In 2022, an Iranian national was arrested and charged with trying to arrange Bolton’s murder, and American intelligence believes that other officials—including Trump himself—have been targeted by Iran because of their involvement in killing Soleimani.
The Biden administration briefed the incoming Trump administration on these threats and on the security details it had authorized to protect Bolton and others. Last week, Trump removed the details protecting Bolton, Pompeo, and Hook; yesterday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth removed the guards around Milley and announced that he would be investigating Milley for undermining the chain of command during Trump’s first term. Trump also revoked the security clearances held by all four men
[From the November 2023 issue: The patriot]
The revocation of security clearances is petty, but it harms the administration more than it does any of these men. Retaining a clearance helps former federal employees find work in the consulting world, and it is typical to hold on to them after leaving government service. (I was offered the opportunity to keep mine when I left the Naval War College.) But at more senior levels, clearances allow people in government to get advice from former leaders. Some of these people could have been of significant help to Trump’s staff during a crisis, although Trump himself is unlikely to care about that possibility.
Removing the security details, however, could have deadly consequences. The Iranians seem determined to seek revenge for the killing of Soleimani, and sooner or later, they might succeed. (“The Iranians are not good but they’re very enthusiastic,” a former Pentagon official said in October. “And of course, they’ve only got to get lucky once.”) And the Iranians aren’t the only threat out there; the Russians have no compunctions about attacking people in their home countries, often using gruesome methods.
Trump takes such threats very seriously, where he is concerned. When Biden officials alerted Trump to the danger from Iran, Trump asked for more security from the U.S. government, and during his campaign, according to The New York Times, he even asked that military assets be assigned to protect him, something usually provided only to sitting presidents.
Lesser mortals, however, must fend for themselves: Trump and Hegseth not only took away the security details of these former policy makers, but did so with significant publicity, almost as if to broadcast to America’s enemies that anyone who wanted to settle scores with these officials would get no trouble from the current White House. (Trump also canceled protection for 84-year-old Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has been the target of multiple threats from other Americans.) Trump despises critics such as Bolton and Milley, and it is unsurprising that he has no obvious issue subjecting them to physical danger. But even some Republicans —who should be used to this kind of vengefulness from the leader of their party—have been shocked, and are trying to get Trump to reverse course. They are particularly concerned about Pompeo and Hook, loyalists whose lives have been placed in jeopardy for sins that are known only to the president.
[Read: Trump can’t escape the laws of political gravity]
In another time, Americans would rally to protect their own from the agents of one of their most dedicated enemies. Today, most citizens seem either unaware or unperturbed that the president of the United States is exposing his own former staff to immense risks. Nevertheless, it should be said clearly and without equivocation: President Trump will bear direct responsibility for any harm that could come to these people from foreign actors.
This is far more than Trump’s usual pettiness. He has always considered the oath of federal service to be little more than an oath of loyalty to him and he has always been willing to threaten his opponents. (In 2018, he apparently considered handing Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, over to Moscow, a move that provoked a level of outrage that seems quaint today.) Trump’s message in this second term is that friends and subordinates are literally disposable if they cross him: He will not only humiliate and fire them, but he will also subject them to actual physical danger.
This escalation of Trump’s vindictiveness should serve as a very personal warning to anyone willing to work for him in his second term. Senior officials at the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA, the National Security Council, and other organizations are routinely asked to go head-to-head with representatives of some of the most dangerous nations on the planet, and to contribute to operations against those regimes. In the past, such officials could do so knowing that their own government would do everything it could to keep them—and their families—safe from foreign agents. As one of Bolton’s former deputies, Charles Kupperman, told the Times: “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.”
Good luck with that. No one who works in defense or national-security affairs can assume that, when Trump orders them to cross America’s many enemies in the world, he will protect them from foreign vengeance. Trump has now made it clear that he will abandon people who have taken risks in the service of the United States—even those who were following his own orders—if they happen to displease him. (Or in the case of Pompeo and Hook, for no apparent reason at all.) Hegseth, for his part, may have no real idea what he’s done, and may merely be courting favor from a boss who has elevated him far beyond his abilities. But Trump knows better; he is himself the survivor of an assassination attempt, and no level of security was enough when he thought the Iranians were gunning for him.
People still considering whether to serve Trump can have no illusions about what awaits them. True leaders take responsibility for their team. Trump is no such leader; he will, on a whim, place other Americans in danger and then, as he famously put it in his previous term, take no responsibility at all.