WASHINGTON — For those who may have crossed President Donald Trump, the message is sinking in: Payback is coming, and coming fast.
John Bolton, a former White House national security adviser who wrote a damning book about Trump’s first term, lost the Secret Service detail assigned to protect him from assassination threats from Iran. Also losing his detail was Anthony Fauci, the public health scientist whom Trump called a “disaster” over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and who has been a target of far-right anger ever since. (Fauci has hired his own private security team in response.)
A portrait of Mark Milley, the former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who broke with Trump over a photo-op at a church during the George Floyd racial justice protests, was abruptly removed from the walls of the Pentagon. Defense officials said they have no idea who ordered it taken down or why.
Trump yanked the security clearances of dozens of former national security officials who’d signed a letter during the 2020 campaign opining that emails from a laptop belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter had the “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” All that happened within days of Trump’s inauguration — and in some cases, hours.
The moves have sparked concerns about the rule of law and the potential for an authoritarian state in the United States. David Laufman, a former senior Justice Department official under Republican and Democratic administrations, said: “There are plenty of early warning signs that confirm the worst fears of people who were concerned about a second Trump administration and what it would mean for the rule of law.”
Trump defended canceling Secret Service details for Fauci, Bolton and others, saying that the government can’t pay for people’s Secret Service protection in perpetuity. A White House spokesman said the former national security officials deserved to lose their security clearances, saying they had “abused their previous positions in government” and “greatly damaged the credibility of the Intelligence Community.”
The Trump administration’s moves have imposed varying levels of hardship for those on the receiving end. Milley’s portrait had been unveiled 10 days before Trump’s swearing-in, and its abrupt disappearance from a wall dedicated to the Joint Chiefs of Staff may serve as a warning to future chiefs that they, too, can be erased from Pentagon history if they fall out of favor with the commander in chief.
Bolton said he’s taking private safety measures now that he’s lost his Secret Service detail, and warned that Iran may harm him in retaliation for the Trump administration’s killing of an Iranian general two years earlier. Members of the U.S. intelligence community told him in the days before Trump’s swearing-in that the threat of assassination remained unchanged and had not gone away.
Denying security clearances to those who co-signed the Hunter Biden letter can create financial distress for some who are now in the private sector and need them to fulfill government contracts. One person whose security clearance was taken away said: “They are now being hurt financially — and also the country is being hurt — because these are people with decades of experience who continue to serve the government after they retire.”
It’s not clear how much thought the new administration gave in announcing the punishment, but one attorney representing some who signed the letter said most of the people no longer possess a security clearance.