Trump turns vs hawkish ex aides as he hopes for deal with Iran

“Trump wants to do a deal,” an Iran democracy activist said. “He got rid of Hook because he was pushing for folks with hawkish views on Iran to get positions at State. Trump doesn’t want that.”

What is one to make of President Trump’s decision, in his first days back in office this week, to revoke the U.S. government-provided security details for three former top advisors, alleged to be facing threats from Iran for actions the Trump administration took in his first term?

And is Trump’s targeting of hawkish former Iran aides based on personal animus or perceived disloyalty? Or does it reflect something more about his desire to pursue a diplomatic resolution with Iran?

Trump on Wednesday said he hoped that his administration could reach a deal with Iran that would avoid the prospect of potential military action by Israel or others.

“Iran, hopefully, will make a deal,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. “And if they don’t make a deal, I guess that’s okay too.”

“Hopefully that could be worked out without having to worry about it,” he said. “It would be really nice if that could be worked out without having to go that further step.”

Trump confirmed that he had ordered the removal of U.S. government security details for his former National Security Advisor John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and his former Iran envoy Brian Hook, as well as for former top U.S. infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, who advised the Trump administration during the covid-19 pandemic, and became the target of wrath from some on the far-right upset about covid lockdowns.

Trump said today that he would feel no sense of responsibility were any of them to be targeted by violence as a result of his actions.

“Certainly I would not take responsibility,” Trump said at a news conference today in North Carolina.

“When you work for government, at some point your security detail comes off,” he said. “You can’t have them forever.”

“They all made a lot of money, they can hire their own security,” Trump said, adding, “I can give them some good numbers of very good security people.”

“I am disappointed, but not surprised, that President Trump has decided to terminate the protection previously provided by the United States Secret Service,” Bolton, who served as Trump’s third national security advisor in his first term, tweeted early Tuesday (Jan. 21), just hours after Trump’s inauguration.

Bolton said then President Biden had extended the Secret Service protection to him in 2021, after US intelligence detected credible threats by Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to hire a hit man to target Bolton, in apparent retaliation for the Trump administration’s assassination in January 2020 of IRGC Qods Force chief Qassem Soleimani. That threat is assessed to be ongoing, Bolton said he had been informed, and a former senior US official affirmed.

But while Bolton has been outspoken about his opposition to Trump since he left the Trump White House under acrimonious circumstances in the fall of 2019, both former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Iran envoy Brian Hook have remained publicly loyal to Trump.

“YOU’RE FIRED”

Indeed, after Trump won the US election in November, Hook had been serving as an outside unofficial advisor to the Trump transition State Department, and had been fielding meetings with some foreign diplomats and officials seeking to share views with the incoming administration.

But that seemed to have abruptly changed, when Trump tweeted early Tuesday that he had “fired” several people from U.S. government boards, among them Hook from a position Trump had appointed him to in 2019 on the board of a Washington think tank, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

“My Presidential Personnel Office is actively in the process of identifying and removing over a thousand Presidential Appointees….who are not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post just after midnight on Tuesday (Jan. 21), just hours after his inauguration. “Let this serve as Official Notice of Dismissal for these 4 individuals, with many more, coming soon. … YOU’RE FIRED.”

In addition to announcing that he had Hook removed from the Wilson Center board, Trump ordered the removal of State Department security details for Pompeo and Hook on Wednesday, the New York Times reported.

An Iranian American pro-democracy activist, who happened to be attending an event with Hook in California in January 2020 on the day that Soleimani was killed, said that it is his understanding that Trump’s turn against Hook and Pompeo is at least partly Iran-policy and personnel-related.

“Trump wants to do a deal,” the Iran pro-democracy activist, speaking not for attribution, told me. “He got rid of Hook because he [Hook] was pushing for folks with hawkish views on Iran to get positions at State. Trump doesn’t want that. He wants America First.”

Trump’s turn against Pompeo seemed equally abrupt, and puzzling.

Pompeo, unlike Bolton, has remained publicly loyal to Trump, and decided against running in the GOP primary for president in 2023 when he saw that Trump was running. Pompeo was widely considered a likely contender to be Trump’s Secretary of Defense were Trump to win the elections last fall.

But on Nov. 9, four days after the US elections, Trump issued a social media post saying that he would not be inviting either Pompeo or Nikki Haley, Trump’s 2024 GOP primary rival and former UN Ambassador, to serve in his administration. And since then, Trump’s animus against Pompeo seems to have hardened.

“Mr. Trump has told people he does not want anyone working for him who worked under Mr. Pompeo in his first term,” the New York Times reported Thursday.

Even more astoundingly, Trump’s Truth Social account reposted a “Trump daily poll” on Wednesday asking respondents to give a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to Trump’s decision to remove Pompeo’s security detail, and describing Pompeo as having become “anti-Trump.”

“President Trump has revoked his former Sec of State Mike Pompeo’s secret service protection,” Trump reposted the “Trump daily poll” post Wednesday. “Pompeo became anti Trump during the Biden administration. Do you support revoking Pompeo’s secret service protection?”

It almost seems like Pompeo is the target of a concerted whispering campaign to turn Trump against him, of a type similar to that former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch faced during the first Trump administration, when Pompeo was Secretary of State and declined publicly to defend her from the relentless attacks which ultimately forced her out of the job.

Some former US officials said they were also baffled by Trump’s sudden turn against Hook and Pompeo.

“I honestly don’t know,” one former official, speaking not for attribution, said, saying he had heard third hand theories along the lines that perhaps Pompeo didn’t immediately endorse Trump. But that’s no reason, he added, to pull their security details, which are there for a reason.

Brian Hook served as State Department Iran envoy in Trump’s first term from before Pompeo became Secretary of State. He later worked very closely with Trump’s son in law and Middle East advisor Jared Kushner, including on the Abraham Accords, another former US official noted.

“Bolton was not a Pompeo person,” the former US official said. “And Brian Hook was as much a Jared [Kushner] person as a Pompeo person.”

Trump also expressed misgivings when he named former Pompeo-era State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus as Deputy Special Presidential Envoy for Middle East Peace, earlier this month.

“Early on, Morgan fought me for three years, but hopefully has learned her lesson,” Trump wrote at Truth Social on Jan. 3, announcing her appointment. “These things usually don’t work out…Let’s see what happens.”

In contrast to his grumbling about Pompeo, Hook, Bolton and others, Trump has repeatedly issued gushing, high praise for his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, a real estate investor and personal friend who was golfing with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last fall when there was another assassination attempt against Trump.

“He’s certainly somebody I will use,” Trump told reporters at the White House Wednesday when asked if he would extend Witkoff’s Middle East envoy file to include diplomacy with Iran, as the Financial Times first reported he planned to do.

“Donald Trump is to put his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in charge of addressing Washington’s concerns over Iran, suggesting the US president is willing to test diplomacy before increasing the pressure on Tehran, people familiar with the matter said,” the Finacial Times reported Wednesday.

“He’s done a fantastic job,” Trump continued. “He’s a great negotiator. He’s a very good person… He gets along with people.

Trump said the Gaza ceasefire/hostage release deal that came into effect last weekend would not have happened without Witkoff.

“Steve has a wonderful way about him and people like him,” Trump said. “Both sides like him, and he was able to make a deal. That deal would have never been made without Steve.”

Photo: Steve Witkoff talks with reporters after a news conference by President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, January 7, 2024, in Palm Beach, Florida. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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