President Donald Trump’s covert exit from Turkey last month involved more than a last-minute plane swap. It also reportedly exposed a rift between Israeli intelligence and CIA analysts. The disagreement centered on how to treat the threat that triggered the operation.
CIA analysts had low confidence in Israeli intelligence about a possible assassination attempt
Donald Trump left Turkey on July 8 after attending a NATO summit in Ankara, and the White House took unusual steps to conceal his movements that day. Concerns had emerged about whether the newly gifted Qatari 747-8 offered adequate security for departing a potentially hostile environment. So, Trump initially boarded a legacy Air Force One.
He then discreetly disembarked and was driven across the tarmac in an airport catering truck to a third aircraft, an Air Force C-32A, which carried him and a small group of aides to Britain. Fighter jets escorted the flight to Mildenhall air base, according to two U.S. officials and other material reviewed by The Washington Post.
The maneuver traced back to intelligence Israel passed to the CIA warning of a possible Iranian plot against Trump’s life. But CIA analysts did not find the intelligence compelling and relayed that skepticism to Trump administration officials, one official claimed. A second official described the threat reports as “Israeli-derived, not U.S.-generated, and viewed as low confidence.”
The White House has not addressed questions about how the intelligence was assessed internally. Despite the doubts among analysts, the Secret Service proceeded with the elaborate switch anyway. “The Secret Service has had three near misses with this president, so they’re not taking any chances,” one official alleged. “They did what they had to do.”
Iran-linked threats against senior U.S. officials have remained a persistent worry since the 2020 killing of Qassem Soleimani. It has intensified further after Iran’s supreme leader was killed in February alongside other top officials at the start of the Iran war. Trump has survived three known assassination attempts since his 2024 campaign, though none has been tied to Iran.
Originally reported by Devanshi Basu on Mandatory.
