President Donald Trump secretly left last month's NATO summit in Turkey on an alternative military aircraft, according to a report by The Washington Post, after an apparent assassination threat. The White House made it appear that he was flying on Air Force One while he was actually transported on a different plane.
Secret Operation at Ankara Summit
The operation was reportedly prompted by an Iranian assassination threat against Trump. Journalists and some White House staff members were led to believe they were on the same plane as the president. Trump was on his journey back to Washington from the annual gathering of NATO country leaders. Material reviewed by the newspaper said the information came from a US official familiar with the operation and another person with knowledge of the president's travel.
The 80-year-old US President flew to the summit in a retrofitted red, white and navy blue jet, which was gifted from Qatar. When it came time to leave, he is said to have been placed on an older-model baby blue Air Force One plane instead. Trump said at the time that the new luxury jet was being flown out ahead of his departure from Ankara in order to give some US troops based in eastern England a chance to see the new Air Force One.
Ruse and Transfer Details
Once in Ankara, Trump boarded the old Air Force One jumbo jet in view of television cameras ahead of the plane flying to Royal Air Force Mildenhall in the United Kingdom. While on the plane, Trump was reportedly secretly moved minutes later to a smaller plane. The newspaper also claimed that Trump was transported to the Air Force C-32A via an airport catering truck. The catering truck is typically used to load meals and other supplies.
When questioned by the Post about their report of the secret operation to take Trump out of the country on a third aircraft or the reported elaborate ruse to make it appear he was on the baby blue Air Force One jet flying to Mildenhall, the White House did not respond directly. White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement: “As the president has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats.”
Context and Reactions
Additionally, the US Secret Service declined to comment. While the Air Force, which maintains the fleet of executive travel aircraft, referred questions to the White House. When Trump was in Turkey, the US military conducted a series of large strikes in Iran in retaliation for its attacks on merchant shipping in the region. The New York Times and CBS News reported last month that intelligence officials had raised concerns about a potential attack on the president or his jet.
Mr Cheung on Monday (August 10) maintained that the Qatari-gifted plane was ‘a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the president and his staff’. Paul Eckloff, a former special agent with the Secret Service, said the unusual move could either reflect actionable intelligence or an abundance of caution given volatility in the region with the wars in Iran and Ukraine. “I would not say unprecedented, but it is an unusual occurrence,” Mr Eckloff told The Associated Press. After arriving at Mildenhall, news photographers captured images of Trump getting off the presidential plane. This suggests that he reboarded Air Force One out of sight of the journalists who thought they were traveling with him.
