President Donald Trump was snuck aboard a separate military plane via a catering truck to fly back from Turkey last month in order to avoid an Iranian assassination plot, according to a report from the Washington Post.
The widely accepted narrative was previously that Trump boarded the old Air Force One to fly to the United Kingdom from Turkey rather than the Qatar-gifted jet that was to become Air Force One, which was in turn sent back for further security upgrades. A new report from the Washington Post, citing two people familiar with the matter, claimed that Trump was actually not on board either, but was instead snuck aboard an Air Force C-32A via a catering truck. The operation, meant to protect him from an Iranian threat, was carried out without the knowledge of most of those on board Air Force One, including officials and journalists, who remained oblivious.
Everyone outside of a small circle was meant to believe that Trump was taking the old Air Force One back home and, to protect the deception, was even recorded boarding it in front of reporters. Minutes later, before it took off, Trump was snuck into a catering truck, which drove to the other plane that took him to the U.K.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth boarded the C-32A, a modified Boeing 757 used for transporting government officials, using its external stairs to give the appearance of normalcy, according to the report.
Reporters on board Air Force One, who believed Trump was on board, were asked to lower the blinds of their windows.
One U.S. official told the Washington Post that the deception operation wasn’t the first, and over the past 30 years, there have been several cases where the president was made to secretly board a second plane after publicly boarding the first due to serious threats. None of these operations has ever been made public.
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Having the president secretly fly in a second plane has been publicized previously, such as during former President Bill Clinton’s March 2000 trip to Islamabad, Pakistan. Clinton was filmed disembarking from a plain white jet following Air Force One, but a deception operation wasn’t mounted before.
The White House has previously disclosed that the president was in a secret location, such as after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but has never publicly been confirmed to have accurately deceived the public as to his location. This marks the first reported instance of such a case, though the official told the outlet it wasn’t the first time.