Trump revokes the security detail of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has faced death threats
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President Trump ended the federal security detail of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert who advised Trump on the COVID-19 pandemic and turned critical of him once Trump tried to undermine public health guidance.
Fauci has faced regular threats to his life and has received federal protection for years, but it was discontinued this week, according to a person familiar with the matter. He is the latest in a string of former Trump aides-turned-critics to see their federal protection canceled despite ongoing threats to their safety.
Speaking to reporters in North Carolina on Friday, Trump said he wouldn’t feel any responsibility if harm befell the former government officials. A person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues, said that Fauci’s federal security detail was ended on Thursday and that he has since hired private security.
When asked about Fauci and Trump’s former national security advisor, John Bolton, the president said, “They all made a lot of money. They can hire their own security, too.”
Trump earlier this week revoked protection details for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his top aide, Brian Hook, as well as Bolton, who have all faced threats from Iran since they took hard-line stances on the Islamic Republic during Trump’s first administration. All three have fallen out with Trump since his previous term in office.
It’s not just criminal prosecutions that worry those who have crossed President Trump. There are other, more prosaic, means of retaliation.
Their security details had been repeatedly renewed by the Biden administration because of credible and ongoing threats from Iran.
“You can’t have a security detail for the rest of your life because you worked for government,” Trump said.
Fauci was a staff member at the National Institutes of Health for 54 years and director of its National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years.
President Biden pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and Jan. 6 committee members to guard against potential revenge by Donald Trump.
He was one of the Trump critics that former President Biden preemptively pardoned before leaving office. Though there is no known evidence of any wrongdoing, Fauci and others had been threatened with potential criminal charges and investigation by Trump and his supporters.
Last summer at a hearing of a Republican-dominated House panel, Fauci talked of some of the threats he and his family have faced.
“There have been everything from harassments by emails, texts, letters, of myself, my wife, my three daughters,” he told the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic. “There have been credible death threats leading to the arrests of two individuals, and ‘credible death threats’ means someone who clearly was on his way to kill me. It’s required my having protective services essentially all the time.”
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