CIA ‘had low confidence’ in Trump assassination threat that sparked secret Air Force One swap

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The CIA had “low confidence” in Iran’s threat against President Donald Trump last month but pressed ahead anyway with its elaborate “deception operation” to remove him from Turkey, according to a report.

The Washington Post reports that intelligence officials received the warning from Israel but did not regard it as “compelling,” expressing their skepticism when they passed the information on to Trump officials preparing for his departure from the Nato summit in Ankara.

The president had flown to the alliance gathering in the retrofitted Boeing 747-8 jet he was gifted by Qatar last year, only to return home via a legacy Air Force One when concerns were raised about the new model lacking the necessary security features.

However, it emerged this week that Trump had in fact only joined the legacy plane when it stopped at RAF Mildenhall in eastern England for refuelling, having been secretly conveyed to a third plane, an Air Force C-32A, inside a hydraulic catering truck, more commonly used for loading trays of in-flight meals on board.

A catering truck was used to smuggle Donald Trump off Air Force One at Ankara International Airport in Ankara, Turkey (AP)

The C-32A then made a parallel flight to Suffolk while officials and journalists traveled on Air Force One as expected, assuming the president was with them.

Upon landing at Mildenhall, photographers captured Trump disembarking the primary presidential plane, indicating he had re-boarded Air Force One away from the gaze of reporters.

Explaining the decision to proceed with the strategy despite the doubts raised over the tip-off, an unnamed official told the Post: “The Secret Service has had three near misses with this president, so they’re not taking any chances. They did what they had to do.”

A former official added that the warning received fit into “a broader pattern of Israeli intelligence reporting that some officials see as designed as much to shape presidential decision-making as to inform it.”

The New York Times previously reported that CIA Director Jim Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned Trump against launching his Operation Epic Fury strikes against Iran in February by saying that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “oversold” the danger posed by Tehran to him.

Trump's route home from July's Nato summit in Ankara, Turkey, via RAF Mildenhall, England, the first leg of which was made secure by sneaking him onto a parallel flight via the catering vehicle — Trump’s route home from July’s Nato summit in Ankara, Turkey, via RAF Mildenhall, England, the first leg of which was made secure by sneaking him onto a parallel flight via the catering vehicle (The Independent)

Trump ignored their caution and the objections raised by Vice President JD Vance to back Netanyahu, sparking the ongoing war now entering its sixth month with no clear end in sight.

The Independent has reached out to the White House and CIA for further comment.

Former Secret Service agent Bobby McDonald told The Independent Tuesday that the decoy plan had been the right thing to do: “It’s been a very long two years of both domestic – and now international – potential assassination attempts.

“You’ve got to be creative. You’ve got to be nimble. You’ve got to make things happen.”

Trump himself has since said of the dramatic manoeuvre employed to secure his safe exit from Turkey: “It’s really just up to Secret Service. I just follow what they like to do.

The CIA reportedly expressed skepticism about the threat against the president’s life but decided to proceed with its ruse out of an abundance of caution (AP)

“They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane, equal safety… I do what they say.”

As the officials indicated, the president has faced three domestic assassination attempts in recent years: twice on the campaign trail in 2024 in Pennsylvania and Florida and in April this year when a gunman attempted to rush security at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner at the Washington Hilton.

Trump has also faced overseas threats, with Iran threatening Trump’s life ever since he ordered the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, in January 2020, with the animosity ramped up considerably since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day of this year’s strikes.

Secret Service Director Sean Curran recently revealed that the current threat level his agency faces is “off the charts,” blaming a political climate more volatile than anything he said he has seen over his 24-year career.

A fellow agent added that there have already been around 10,000 threats made against government officials and Supreme Court justices so far in 2026, a 40 percent increase on the same period in 2025.

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