Top Senate Republican Urges Trump to ‘Revisit’ Stripping Protection From Ex-Aides: ‘Iran Is Committed to Vengeance’
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, joined Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday and urged President Donald Trump to “revisit” his decision to strip security protection from some of his former aides.
“President Trump has taken back the security detail for a number of people Anthony Fauci, Mike Pompeo, and Brian Hook among them, John Bolton too. The Wall Street Journal editorial board says, ‘Pray it won’t happen, but what if one of them now gets attacked If Iran commits violence against any of these men, Mr. Trump won’t be able to escape some responsibility,’” Bream asked Cotton their conversation Sunday.
Cotton, a prominent hawk, replied, “I would encourage the president to revisit the decision for those people who are being targeted by Iran as the president was targeted for assassination by Iran.”
Iran has sought to kill members of Trump’s first administration, as well as Trump himself, over the 2020 assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander Qassim Suleimani. Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wept at Suleimani’s public funeral and has vowed retaliation against anyone involved in the deadly drone strike.
Cotton further explained the stakes to Bream, adding, “As the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I’ve reviewed the intelligence in the last few days. The threat to anyone involved in President Trump’s strike on Qassim Suleimani. It’s persistent. It’s real. Iran is committed to vengeance against all of these people.”
“In fact, the chief of staff of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence agreed with me that if these threats were against him or his family, that he would want security because the threats are real. There are gaps in our coverage. We don’t know what we don’t know. And it’s better to be safe than sorry, because it’s not just about these men who helped President Trump carry out his policy in his first term,” he added, concluding:
It’s about his family, their family and friends, innocent bystanders every time they’re in public. It’s also about the president being able to get good people and get good advice. If people are saying going into work for the president now on Iran or China or North Korea or the Mexican drug cartels, they might hesitate to do so or they might hesitate if they’re in office to give him the advice he needs or carry out the policies that he decides upon.
Trump’s canceling of the protection for Bolton and the others was widely seen as the president punishing those who have publicly criticized his past leadership. Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security advisor, has become one of the president’s fiercest critics regularly arguing that Trump lacks the moral and mental fitness for the job.
Watch the clip above via Fox News.
