Democrats Demand Briefing on Air Force One 'Decoy' Flight

Democrats on Tuesday called for a congressional briefing on the secret operation that moved President Trump off Air Force One last month, leaving more than a hundred aides, officials and journalists to fly on without being told of a threat to the aircraft.

U.S. intelligence had detected what officials describe as a credible Iranian plot to kill the president as he left Turkey after the NATO summit, according to reporting first published by The Washington Post and also by The New York Times. Trump was taken off the plane in a catering truck and transferred to an Air Force C-32A.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told CNN the episode was "unprecedented and surreal" and "downright scary." "There has to be a congressional briefing because it involves not just the safety of the president," he said. "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 confirmed the switch Tuesday but said the aircraft he actually used was the riskier one. "I think actually the plane that I flew on was at greater risk," he told reporters, adding: "It's only up to Secret Service. I just follow what they'd like to do."

The White House had said publicly that Trump would fly to Britain aboard the older Air Force One. He boarded in view of television cameras before being removed minutes later. Reporters were told to keep their window shades closed. The C-32A landed at RAF Mildenhall about 10:20 p.m.; the press plane arrived minutes later, and photographers captured Trump descending from the presidential aircraft.

Steven Cash, a former CIA officer who leads the Steady State, said: "It appears that the idea was we can reduce the danger to President Trump by offering up 100 or so people to be killed by the Iranians in his place."

Ned Price, a former National Security Council official, said the administration could have asked the press pool to withhold security details instead of maintaining an "outright lie" for weeks. CNN's Jake Tapper said no officials he spoke with had heard of using a plane full of staff and journalists as a decoy. Jose Zamora of the Committee to Protect Journalists said reporters should be told of credible threats.

Ankit Panda of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace questioned the threat's plausibility, saying an Iranian attack at that depth would require "close-in clandestine operators with man-portable anti-air systems."