Former House Intel Chairman Mike Turner: ‘I’m Very Concerned For Pompeo’ After Protection Pulled

Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH) said over the weekend that he was “very concerned” for the safety of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after President Donald Trump decided to pull his protective security detail despite threats that he faces from Iran.

Turner made the remarks during a Sunday interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation” with Margaret Brennan when asked if he would encourage Trump reconsider pulling the protective security details off of officials who served during his first term in office who face serious threats from Iran.

“Well, obviously, I’m very concerned for Mike Pompeo,” Turner said.

Turner said at a different point during the interview that when he was the chairman of the committee that he focused on national security, specifically “state actors and non-state actors” who were looking to harm the U.S.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, also urged Trump over the weekend to reconsider his decision.

“I would encourage the president to revisit the decision for those people who are being targeted by Iran,” Cotton told Fox News, noting that even Trump has been a target for Iranian assassination over the last few years in retaliation for the killing of Iranian terrorist commander Qasem Soleimani.

“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 Qasem Soleimani is persistent,” he said. “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,” he continued. “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 on his policy in his first term.”

Cotton said that the protective details also protect other innocent people who could get caught up in any kind of assassination attempts, including random bystanders in public spaces.

“It’s also about the President being able to get good people and get good advice,” Cotton said. “If people are saying going to 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.”

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