Credible missile threat led to secret aircraft switch for Trump, source says

Filed 1w ago · Via al-monitor.com · The Buffoon Desk

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Investigations

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: 颐园居 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A person briefed on the matter says the Secret Service secretly switched Trump onto a smaller C-32A jet during his July 8 departure from Turkey after intelligence indicated a credible, imminent threat of a shoulder-fired missile attack against Air Force One. Trump and aides Dan Scavino, Natalie Harp and Walt Nauta used a catering truck to move to the alternate plane, while Air Force One departed separately carrying Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, communications director Steven Cheung, other staff, and the traveling press pool.

A second source said there was no clear operational plan by hostile actors, only intent, which is reportedly why officials allowed the flights to proceed rather than grounding them. U.S. officials were also alarmed that Iran apparently knew the specific floor of Trump's Ankara hotel. Trump told reporters he made the switch on Secret Service orders and claimed, without evidence, that the decoy plane he wasn't on was actually at greater risk.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Presidents concealing their movements in dangerous places isn't new, but doing it to your own secretary of state, treasury secretary and press pool without telling them they're riding the decoy is a choice, not a security necessity. The administration gets to call it prudence; the people who spent that flight unknowingly serving as bait might use a different word.

Source: Read the original at al-monitor.com → Scored: Investigations · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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