Dan Lamothe and Cat Zakrzewski
Washington: As US President Donald Trump secretly left an Air Force One jet on a catering truck in response to a potential Iranian assassination threat in Turkey, he was accompanied by some of his most loyal and longest-serving aides – but no cabinet officials.
Other passengers on the truck included Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff; Natalie Harp, the president’s executive assistant; and Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, according to a US official familiar with the operation and corroborating material reviewed by The Washington Post. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.
A few lower-profile aides also were present, but the group did not include Secretary of State Marco Rubio or other officials at the highest level of the government, according to the official and the material. Together, those aboard the catering truck moved under concealment from the legacy Air Force One aircraft to a smaller Air Force C-32A before flying to Britain separately from the White House press corps and senior officials.
The account adds a new level of understanding to a July 8 operation that has triggered calls from congressional Democrats for an immediate briefing. White House officials withheld the secret move from journalists travelling with the president that day and for more than a month afterward.
Among those on the smaller jet was Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who boarded the C-32A using external stairs in a manner that made him look like the senior-most official on the flight.
Scavino, Harp and Nauta were among an inner circle of supporters who worked for Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida during the four years between his presidencies, after many other officials who served in the first Trump White House distanced themselves following his two impeachments and multiple criminal investigations.
Other senior administration officials, military personnel, Secret Service agents and journalists remained on the legacy Air Force One plane, which had been deemed too risky for the president’s travel.
More than a month after the operation and two days after The Post first revealed the ruse involving the military aircraft, the White House has declined to say which administration officials remained on that jumbo jet, which the White House falsely claimed Trump used to leave Turkey.
In his first public comments about the operation, Trump said the decision for him to take an alternative flight was made by the Secret Service.
“It’s really just up to Secret Service. I just follow what they like to do,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Tuesday night. “They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane, equal safety. … I do what they say.”
It remains unclear whether all the top administration officials involved were aware they were flying on a different plane than the president or whether they, like the reporters assigned to be in the pool covering him, were kept in the dark.
When asked on Tuesday why it was too dangerous for him to fly on the legacy Air Force One but not the press, Trump asserted that he still faced a greater threat than those on the other plane.
“The plane that I was on was at greater risk,” Trump said. “Because that would be the plane that I think that they would be more likely to go for.”
The White House did not provide the media with a list of passengers leaving Turkey – information that it commonly does share.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Rubio were among the officials listed on the manifest on the way to Turkey, where they attended a NATO summit. Both flew out of Turkey what was effectively a decoy plane, a senior US official told AP on Wednesday (US time).
Other officials on the manifest included White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, communications director Steven Cheung, deputy national security adviser Michael Needham and staff secretary Will Scharf, who was promoted this week to White House counsel.
Scavino, Harp and Nauta did not respond to requests for comment about accompanying Trump on the catering truck and the ensuing flight from Ankara to Britain.
Scavino has worked for Trump for more than a decade, managing his social media presence and running the White House Presidential Personnel Office. Harp, known as the “human printer”, constantly accompanies Trump with hard copies of emails, news articles and social media posts. Nauta, a Navy veteran who served as a valet in the first Trump White House, was a key witness in the Justice Department’s probe of Trump’s handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
The journalists flying on the old Air Force One were unaware of the operation, though they asked Trump later in the day why staff directed them to keep their window shades closed throughout the flight.
Trump responded that it was “because you’re probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleaze bags that we have to deal with.” Trump said that he has a “threat all the time” against his life and that he is “number one” on Iran’s “list”.
Democrats have raised concerns that the manoeuvre left the press and some White House staff unwittingly in harm’s way. They’ve called for the administration to brief Congress on the operation.
“There has to be a congressional briefing because it involves not just the safety of the president,” Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said in an interview with CNN.
“I want to know what precautions were taken to make sure that all of the passengers on that Air Force One, which was judged too dangerous for the president to fly on, what precautions were taken to keep the staff and reporters on that plane safe.”
Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he was not surprised by the Secret Service operation because he faces “a lot of threats that you don’t know about”.
“Any consequential president has a lot of threats,” he said. “Non-consequential presidents don’t get threatened. And I think that I may be the most consequential.”
Washington Post
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