Donald Trump secretly flew out of last month’s NATO summit in Ankara, Turkiye, on an alternate military aircraft while the White House made it appear that the Republican President was flying on Air Force One, according to a report published by ‘The Washington Post’ on Monday. ‘The Post’ said the operation was prompted by an Iranian assassination threat against Trump. The ruse was carried out as journalists and some White House staff members were led to believe that they were on the same plane as the President as he began his journey back to Washington from the annual gathering of NATO country leaders. ‘The Post’ cited material reviewed by the newspaper, a US official familiar with the operation and another person with knowledge of the President’s travel. Trump had flown to the summit in a new Qatari-gifted and retrofitted red, white and navy blue jet. But ahead of departing Turkiye, he said he would fly partway home on an older-model baby blue Air Force One plane instead.

 

The President at the time said the new luxury jet was being flown out ahead of his departure from Ankara to give some US troops based in eastern England a chance to check out the new Air Force One. 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. However, according to ‘The Post’ report, after boarding the legacy Air Force One jet, he was secretly shuttled minutes later to a smaller plane -- an Air Force C-32A -- via an airport catering truck typically used to load meals and other supplies. Trump flew to Mildenhall on that smaller jet.

 

The White House did not respond directly to questions about the report of the secret operation to whisk 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. “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,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement. The US Secret Service declined to comment. The Air Force, which maintains the fleet of executive travel aircraft, referred questions to the White House. While Trump was in Turkiye, the US military conducted a series of large strikes in Iran in retaliation for its attacks on merchant shipping in the region.

 

The blue-and-white C-32A, a modified Boeing 757 used to transport American Government officials, had been flown to Turkiye along with the legacy Air Force One and the former Qatari jet to support the President’s visit, the US official said. Defending the jet gifted by Qatar, White House Communications Director Steven Chueng said in a statement responding to a query by the ‘Washington Post’-- “The new Air Force One is 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,” According to the ‘Washington Post’, while no flight tracker data could be found for the C-32 A, videos posted on Youtube showed the former Qatari jet landing which was followed by a C-32A hours later and the legacy Air Force One several minutes later. It mentioned that while it was not clear how Trump moved from C-32 A to the legacy Air Force One after landing, the ‘Washington Post’ said referring a media pool report that he exited the Air Force One at 10:56 pm. Trump was in Ankara to attend the NATO Summit with world leaders in July.

 

The decoy has raised questions about how much information the US administration has disclosed about the operation since the President’s actual location was concealed from several senior US officials and the American public. ‘The Post’ noted its in report that the Trump operation highlighted the depth of concerns US security officials had about POTUS leaving Turkiye-- a country that shares border with Iran. The US official said that a credible threat to Trump involving Iran set the “deception operation” into motion. There have been other times in the last 30 years when Air Force One served as a decoy for the President because of a serious threat or because he was flying to a dangerous location, another US official said, declining to elaborate.