Journalists travelling with US President Donald Trump on a flight from Turkey to the United Kingdom last month were kept uninformed about an extraordinary operation that involved moving the Republican leader from Air Force One to a military aircraft amid a reported Iranian threat.
Four journalists aboard the presidential plane told The Washington Post that they only noticed unusual occurrences during the flight in retrospect. Expressing disappointment over the White House’s lack of transparency regarding the secretive relocation, the reporters stated that the government left them feeling deceived.
While each journalist acknowledged the inherent risks of travelling with the president, they believed they deserved to be informed about the specific threat facing the flight.
“We never were provided any opportunity to consent to being used like this,” The Post quoted one journalist as saying. “We aren’t Air Force or Secret Service — we didn’t sign up for this job to put ourselves on the line to protect the president.”
According to the report, it remains unclear if the journalists and government staff on Air Force One faced any direct danger. The Post noted that the CIA had “low confidence” in intelligence regarding a potential Iranian threat.
Two US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the president’s undisclosed departure from Ankara, said that F-16 fighter jets were deployed as armed escorts during the trip to Britain. One of those officials confirmed that some of the fighter jets flew just off the wingtips of the aircraft carrying Trump for a portion of the journey.
By concealing the president’s decoy manoeuvre, many journalists said the White House violated a core agreement with the press corps, which is charged with accurately accounting for the movements of the US president.
Some journalists who were on the flight later said they felt endangered on a plane that was deemed risky for the president.
“Transparency was thrown entirely out the window, replaced by outright deception,” Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief for the New York Times, said in a Times story. “That’s a terrible precedent. And the fact that it left journalists and staff members unknowingly exposed to a potential threat made it much, much worse.”
The White House press pool is a rotating group of journalists responsible for covering the president’s activities and sharing reports, photos and footage with the wider press corps.
“There’s a reason that press pool is often called the body watch,” said journalist and historian Garrett Graff, according to The Post. “You’re there in case something goes wrong.”
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and several White House aides joined Trump on a military plane, Air Force C-32A, that he boarded to fly out of Turkey after sneaking off Air Force One following an Iranian threat.
The US president later confirmed that he was secretly moved from Air Force One to the military aircraft while leaving Turkey last month, saying he followed instructions from the Secret Service and military amid a reported Iranian threat.
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