'Air Force One could be targeted'

A threat that Air Force One could be targeted by a shoulder-fired missile prompted the Secret Service to secretly move President Donald Trump onto an unmarked government jet during a trip to Turkey last month, a person briefed on the matter said on Wednesday.

The threat emerged on the final day of Trump's visit to Ankara for the NATO summit amid heightened tensions with Iran, the source said. The Secret Service deemed the threat to be credible and imminent, prompting an extraordinary operation to conceal the U.S. president's movements.

The source declined to say where the intelligence came from but said officials had little time to prepare and devised the plans at the last minute.

Trump and a small group of aides used a catering truck to surreptitiously switch them from the big blue-and-white presidential aircraft to a smaller, nondescript C-32A jet for the flight out of Turkey on July 8, while Air Force One departed separately carrying senior administration officials, White House staff and the traveling press corps, according to the source.

Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he made the switch at the direction of the Secret Service, which is charged with presidential security. He flew from Ankara to a refueling stop in Britain without incident.

"I think actually the plane that I flew on was at greater risk," Trump told reporters, without providing evidence. "I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for."

US presidents, including Trump, have occasionally traveled under secrecy when visiting war zones or high-risk regions in order to maintain security. But those trips typically involved advance notice for journalists traveling with the president.

Some members of the press got a heads up ahead of a Thanksgiving 2003 trip by President George W. Bush to Baghdad. Other members of the press corps covering Bush's Thanksgiving holiday in Crawford, Texas, were misled, however. Told that Bush was spending the feast day with family, they were shocked when the president abruptly surfaced in Iraq.

The source on Wednesday said the Secret Service did not have the luxury of time in Turkey.

"They were scrambling to head off what they thought was a credible, imminent threat," the source said.

The Washington Post first reported details of the operation this week, more than a month after it was carried out.

The New York Times reported that US officials were alarmed to discover that Iranians knew where Trump was staying in Ankara, including the exact floor of his hotel. Reuters