President Donald Trump announced Friday that he pulled federal security protection for former top U.S. health official, Dr. Anthony Fauci, making him the latest casualty of Trump’s revenge tour.
Fauci, who retired from government service in December 2022, served as the nation’s top infectious diseases expert amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He was protected by federal marshals, and later by a private contractor, that was paid for by the National Institutes of Health, according to The New York Times.
Sources close to the situation also told CNN, which first reported the move, that Fauci’s detail was abruptly terminated on Thursday evening.
This past June, Fauci said he and his family still receive death threats, in part, because right-wing figures like Trump repeatedly promoted baseless lies about the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine.
“It’s a pattern,” Fauci told CNN, adding that when someone in the media or Congress “gets up and makes a public statement that I’m responsible for the deaths of X number of people because of policies or some crazy idea that I created the virus— immediately you can, it’s like clockwork—the death threats go way up.”
In May 2022, for instance, a West Virginia man pleaded guilty to sending Fauci and other federal officials emails that threatened to kill them. Given that, and the public-facing role Fauci played during the pandemic, he’s now hired his own private security that he’ll pay for himself.
During a press conference in North Carolina on Friday, Trump defended the move as a natural progression that comes once officials no longer serve in the federal government. He also suggested that Fauci has more than enough money to pay for his own security detail.
John Bolton
“When you work for [the] government at some point your security detail comes off and you know, you can’t have it forever. So I think it’s very standard,” Trump said. “We took some off other people, too. But you can’t have a security detail for the rest of your life because you work for [the] government.” Of course, this is easy to say if you’re president, as they get protection for the rest of their lives.
This is the latest move in Trump’s revenge arc. Earlier this week, he yanked security detail from his former national security adviser, John Bolton, who sharply criticized the president in his memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.” Trump cited the memoir as one of his reasons for revoking Bolton’s security detail.
“The memoir’s reckless treatment of sensitive information undermined the ability of future presidents to request and obtain candid advice on matters of national security from their staff,” Trump said in the executive order from Monday that announced the move. “Publication also created a grave risk that classified material was publicly exposed.” (Not that Trump has ever been accused of doing such a thing.)
In addition to Bolton, Trump also moved to end security details for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former State Department official Brian Hook. Both men were granted additional protection because they faced threats from Iran.
At least, in Fauci’s case, Trump might not be able to retaliate against him personally. Former President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci on his last day in office, citing concerns about politically motivated investigations into the doctor, who had served for decades as the nation’s top infectious diseases expert.
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