President Trump said on Friday that he had terminated taxpayer-financed security protection for Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the infectious disease specialist who led the nation through the coronavirus pandemic and received death threats after becoming a target of conservatives.
The move, which took effect on Thursday night, made Dr. Fauci the latest prominent former official to lose his security detail since Mr. Trump returned to the White House. It came after Dr. Fauci’s chief critic on Capitol Hill, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, publicly called for Dr. Fauci’s security to be withdrawn. Mr. Trump agreed.
“When you work for government, at some point your security detail comes off and, you know, you can’t have them forever,” Mr. Trump said on a trip to North Carolina.
He suggested that Dr. Fauci, who retired from government service in December 2022, hire private security. “I can give them some good numbers of some very good security people,” the president said.
A person familiar with the situation said Dr. Fauci had done just that, and now had his own security detail. Mr. Trump told reporters he would not feel responsible if harm came to Dr. Fauci.
Dr. Fauci served in government for half a century and ran the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 30 years, advising presidents from Ronald Reagan to Joseph R. Biden Jr., including Mr. Trump. But he and the president had a fraught relationship; in his memoir, released last year, Dr. Fauci described it as “complicated.”
In a chapter titled “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not,” Dr. Fauci described how Mr. Trump repeatedly told him he “loved” him while at the same time excoriating him with tirades flecked with four-letter words. At times, Mr. Trump publicly threatened to fire Dr. Fauci. Other Republicans, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, targeted Dr. Fauci during their political campaigns.
In May 2022, a West Virginia man pleaded guilty to sending Dr. Fauci and other federal officials emails threatening to kill them and their families.
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 continuing threats from Iran because of actions they took on Mr. Trump’s behalf during his first administration.
Mr. Trump 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.
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, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Marshals Service, who declined further comment.
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 Mr. Biden for Dr. Fauci in an appearance on Fox News, saying that by accepting the pardon, Dr. Fauci was “accepting his guilt.”
Dr. Fauci declined to comment on Friday. But in a statement after the pardon was issued, he pointed to his long career in government service and said he had done nothing wrong.
“Let me be perfectly clear,” Dr. Fauci said in the statement. “I have committed no crime and there are no possible grounds for any allegation or threat of criminal investigation or prosecution of me.”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting from Asheville, N.C.
