By David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -John Bolton, a former adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump who is now a persistent critic, said on Tuesday he was concerned about the withdrawal of his Secret Service protection and criticized raids on his home and office last week.
Bolton, speaking at an online event assessing Trump’s summit on Monday with the South Korean leader, was asked if he felt safe in the current environment, where the administration was at odds with his beliefs, and said that he had been the target of an Iranian assassination attempt in the past.
“And on … the inauguration day, President Trump withdrew my Secret Service protection,” he said.
“So yeah, I feel … concerned about that, more than anything else. But you know it’s the environment we operate in, and you can either just be overwhelmed by it, or keep going. So I plan to keep going.”
Earlier, in a post on X, Bolton renewed his criticism of Trump, and addressed the raid on his home, saying:
“Donald Trump’s Ukraine policy today is no more coherent than it was last Friday when his administration executed search warrants against my home and office. Collapsing in confusion and haste, Trump’s negotiations may be in their last throes, along with his Nobel Peace Prize campaign.”
FBI agents searched Bolton’s Maryland home on Friday in what a source familiar with the matter said was part of a national security probe focused on the potential criminal release of classified information. The FBI also confirmed law enforcement activity at Bolton’s Washington D.C. office.
Bolton served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and White House national security adviser during Trump’s first term, but has since called Trump unfit for office.
Trump vowed during his presidential campaign to use the criminal justice system against his rivals, and since returning to power his administration has arrested the Democratic mayor of a New Jersey city, filed criminal charges against a Democratic U.S. representative and started federal investigations into a Democratic U.S. senator, a Democratic state attorney general and just this week, a governor of the Federal Reserve.
Trump said on Monday he was not involved in the Bolton situation. On Friday, he said he did not know about the raid, but saw it on television and said he was “not a fan of John Bolton … He could be a very unpatriotic guy. We’re going to find out.”
The Justice Department during Trump’s first term sued Bolton and started a criminal investigation into him over allegations that he shared classified information in his 2020 book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” which painted a scathing picture of Trump’s first administration.
Bolton denied the allegations and accused White House officials of acting improperly to block a critical account.
Bolton’s protective Secret Service detail was assigned after the U.S. Justice Department said Iran had threatened his life.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Don Durfee and David Gregorio)
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