President Donald Trump was whisked out of Turkey last month on a military aircraft in an elaborate plot to keep his location secret amid security fears from the war with neighboring Iran, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the plan.

Security Measures

The Washington Post was first to report the details of the clandestine operation, which included using a catering truck to get the president on the C-32 that flew from Ankara to the Mildenhall air force base in the U.K.

The U.S. official confirmed the accuracy of these details. Trump deplaned the C-32, again secretly, and reboarded the older Air Force One jet to emerge in public view of cameras to eventually walk across the tarmac to the newer Qatari-donated jet, which lacks certain security measures and will soon be further retrofitted.

When reached for comment, White House communications director Steven Cheung did not dispute the Post’s story, which cited material reviewed by the Post, a U.S. official familiar with the operation and another person with knowledge of the president’s travel.

“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,” he said. “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.”

Reaction

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called Trump’s undisclosed travels “downright scary.”

“There has to be a congressional briefing because it involves not just the safety of the president,” Blumenthal said during an interview with CNN on Monday night. “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.”

Original reporting: NBC Connecticut — read the source article.