U.S. News: Former Top Trump Official Denied Security

"WASHINGTON -- The Biden administration has declined for almost a year to provide security to Robert O'Brien, a former national security adviser in the Trump White House, despite behind-the-scenes pressure from lawmakers and what they describe as ongoing threats against his life.

Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, wrote two letters to President Biden over the past year requesting that the administration reinstate O'Brien's Secret Service protective detail, which was ended with no explanation on Aug. 1, 2023. Turner also met with the Secret Service and national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the matter, to no avail.

"It is a dangerous precedent to set, to not extend a former National Security Advisor's protective detail while there are active threats against his life, especially in a growing threat environment," Turner wrote on Jan. 30. "Ambassador O'Brien both needs and deserves a protective detail for his service to this country." The letters were dated June 21, 2023, and Jan. 30, 2024.

The news that the Biden administration has refused to reinstate O'Brien's security detail despite apparent ongoing threats comes in the midst of rising scrutiny of the Secret Service and concern about adequate protection for senior U.S. officials, days after the attempt on the life of former President Donald Trump.

"I think their mandate is too broad," said Jason Chaffetz, former chairman of the House Oversight Committee, who led an investigation into the agency. "They have resource stress? Then narrow their mission."

Spokespeople for the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security didn't respond to a request for comment.

The threats against O'Brien began after Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike. O'Brien was serving as national security adviser when Trump ordered the strike.

The Iranian government and affiliated groups such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have since made graphic threats on the lives of several officials involved in the strike, including a January 2023 animated video posted on Telegram showing photos of Trump, O'Brien, Mark Milley, who was then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others.

After Trump left office, the Biden administration initially directed the respective law enforcement agencies to continue their protection of those individuals, and others, including O'Brien. While the Secret Service was responsible for O'Brien's detail, some of the others have been protected by the security arms of the Departments of State and Defense. Many of the former officials who faced potential Iranian retaliation, including Milley, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, still have their security details.

Following Saturday's assasination attempt on Trump, O'Brien told the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that he no longer has a security detail, despite his requests to extend it.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle sent him a 60-day notice of termination of his protection on June 2, 2023, according to O'Brien.

"I objected to no avail," O'Brien said, according to a tweet from Hewitt. "Fortunately, since then, we have had tremendous support from our state and local law enforcement officials as well as retired agents, who we have retained at our own expense," he said, referring to retired Secret Service agents.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray and his team have continued to provide O'Brien with briefings on the continuing threats against him, O'Brien told Hewitt.

Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican, said he has urged the administration in several conversations with top Biden officials, including with Sullivan and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, to reinstate O'Brien's security detail. He was told the decision to curtain O'Brien's protection was based on "a wide variety of circumstances," including human resources, budgetary limitations and the nature of the threat, Lee said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Lee said he rejects that explanation, and that everything he has seen publicly and in classified settings shows there is still a "serious, credible" threat against O'Brien.

Iran's government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps "have got basically what amounts to a death warrant out against him," Lee said in an interview, adding that other former officials who might face less of a threat still have security." [1]

1. U.S. News: Former Top Trump Official Denied Security. Seligman, Lara; Strobel, Warren P.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 17 July 2024: A.3.