President Trump canceled Dr. Anthony S. Fauci’s government-financed security protection on Thursday night. The move made Dr. Fauci, who received death threats during the coronavirus pandemic, the latest prominent former official to lose his security detail since Mr. Trump returned to the White House.
“You can’t have it forever,” Mr. Trump said on a trip to North Carolina on Friday.
A person familiar with the situation said Dr. Fauci, who retired from government service in December 2022, has hired his own security detail.
Dr. Fauci, one of the nation’s top health officials for decades and a former director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, became a frequent target of conservative critics during the Covid-19 pandemic. In May 2022, a West Virginia man pleaded guilty to sending him and other federal officials emails that threatened to kill them and their families.
Dr. Fauci did not have Secret Service protection; he was protected by federal marshals, and later by a private contractor whose fees were paid by the government, the person said.
Dr. Fauci’s chief critic on Capitol Hill, Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, had publicly called for his security arrangement to be withdrawn.
On Thursday, Mr. Paul wrote on social media that he had “sent supporting information to end the 24 hr a day limo and security detail for Fauci,” adding, “I wish him nothing but peace but he needs to pay for his own limos.”
Those comments came hours after Mr. Paul criticized a pre-emptive pardon from President Joe Biden for Dr. Fauci in an appearance on Fox News, saying that accepting the pardon Dr. Fauci was “accepting his guilt.”
Mr. Trump’s decision on Dr. Fauci’s security came a day after he revoked the State Department security details for his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and another former top aide, Brian Hook. Both men faced ongoing threats from Iran because of actions they took on Mr. Trump’s behalf during his first administration.
Mr. Trump has also pulled the Secret Service detail that had been protecting another former aide who later became a high-profile critic, John R. Bolton, his former national security adviser.