AP Photo/Matt Rourke
The CIA had serious doubts about Israeli intelligence warning of an Iranian plot to assassinate President Donald Trump — a threat that ultimately prompted an elaborate operation to secretly fly him out of Turkey last month, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Israel passed the intelligence to the CIA ahead of Trump’s July 8 departure from a NATO summit in Ankara, but American analysts were reportedly unconvinced by the information and communicated their skepticism to administration officials.
One U.S. official described the intelligence to the Post as “Israeli-derived, not U.S.-generated, and viewed as low confidence.”
Despite those reservations, the White House and Secret Service took extraordinary precautions to get Trump out of Turkey.
As first reported by the Post this week, Trump initially boarded the legacy Air Force One in Ankara before secretly leaving the aircraft and being transported aboard an airport catering truck to an Air Force C-32A. The smaller military aircraft, accompanied by F-16 fighter jets, then flew Trump and a small group of aides to Britain’s Mildenhall air base.
The operation came amid concerns about using the new Boeing 747-8 gifted by Qatar to transport Trump out of a potentially dangerous environment.
“The Secret Service has had three near misses with this president so they’re not taking any chances,” a U.S. official told The Post. “They did what they had to do.”
Some intelligence officials went further in questioning Israel’s motives for providing the warning, suggesting it may have been intended partly to influence Trump’s approach to the Middle East. One former official said the warning “fit a broader pattern of Israeli intelligence reporting that some officials see as designed as much to shape presidential decision-making as to inform it.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), meanwhile, questioned whether the Israeli intelligence could be independently verified. “I have no doubt that Iran would like to see the president gone,” he told the Post, “but this all seems a little fantastical.”
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