U.S. intelligence officials were skeptical of reports about an Iranian assassination plot targeting Donald Trump — intelligence passed along by Israel that ultimately triggered an unprecedented covert operation to secretly evacuate the American president from Turkey aboard a different military aircraft.
According to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter, the Israeli government had transmitted the warning to the CIA. However, American intelligence analysts did not find the underlying evidence particularly convincing and relayed their reservations to Trump administration officials.
Another U.S. official described the threat intelligence as “coming from Israel, not the U.S.” and rated it with a “low degree of confidence.”
The doubts that existed within parts of the American intelligence community over whether there was an imminent threat to the president add a new dimension to the White House’s decision to conceal Trump’s actual location as he departed the NATO summit in Ankara on July 8.
As the Washington Post had previously reported, Trump boarded the older Air Force One in full view of cameras. He was then secretly removed via an airport catering vehicle and transferred to a U.S. Air Force C-32A, aboard which he flew with a small group of close aides to the United Kingdom.
The White House did not directly respond to questions about the content of the intelligence the U.S. had received or how it had been assessed by American agencies. “As the president has stated, he has faced numerous threats on his life, including from Iran, and every measure is being taken to ensure his safety,” a U.S. official said. “The Secret Service’s core mission is to protect the president, and that is exactly what they did.”
“They couldn’t take any risk” — “The Secret Service has had three instances where we came very close with this president”
Despite reservations about the reliability of the intelligence, the White House and the Secret Service appear to have concluded that there was no margin for taking any risk whatsoever.
Iranian threats to assassinate Trump and other senior U.S. officials have been a serious security concern for Washington since 2020, when the U.S. killed Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force.
Those concerns intensified further following the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in February, along with dozens of other senior Iranian officials, at the outset of the war.
Trump has been the target of three known assassination plots since his 2024 campaign, though no established connection has emerged between the perpetrators or suspects in those cases and Iran.
According to a U.S. official, the Secret Service’s elaborate operation in Ankara was organized with maximum precaution in mind, despite the questions surrounding the Israeli intelligence. “The Secret Service has had three instances where we came very close with this president, so they’re not taking any chances,” the official said. “They did what they had to do.”
The Wall Street Journal was first to report last month that Israel had shared intelligence about the Iranian threat with the U.S. government.
F-16 fighter jets escorted the secret flight
Another significant detail revealed by the Washington Post is that the C-32A that secretly transported Trump from Ankara to RAF Mildenhall in the United Kingdom was escorted by F-16 fighter jets, according to two U.S. officials and other material reviewed by the newspaper.
Trump himself, in his first public comments on the covert operation, said the decision to travel on a different aircraft was made by the Secret Service. “It really depends on the Secret Service. I just follow what they want to do,” he told reporters. “They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane, with the same security… I do what they tell me.”
Some suspect Israel wanted to “frighten” Trump
Particularly noteworthy are assessments by some U.S. officials suggesting that Israel’s warning may not have been aimed exclusively at alerting Washington to a genuine threat.
Current and former U.S. officials told the Washington Post that some members of the intelligence community interpreted the Israeli warning as an effort intended more to influence Trump’s decisions and shape U.S. policy in the region than to share actionable threat intelligence.
Israel considers Iran by far the most serious and immediate threat to its security. At the same time, however, it views Turkey as a medium- to long-term threat and is reported to be concerned about the warming of relations between Washington and Ankara — a rapprochement bolstered by Trump’s personal relationship with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
A former U.S. official argued that the specific warning fit into a broader pattern of Israeli intelligence that, in the assessment of some American officials, is designed both to inform and to influence presidential decision-making.
Rubio knew — but still boarded Air Force One
Another detail that deepens questions about how imminent the threat was actually considered involves Secretary of State Marco Rubio. According to a former U.S. official, Rubio had been briefed both on the Israeli threat intelligence and on the Secret Service’s deception plan. Nevertheless, he chose to board the older Air Force One — the very aircraft that, had the Iranian plot been real, could have been the intended target.
Another U.S. official familiar with the security discussions also expressed doubts about the seriousness of the threat, noting that tens of thousands of Turkish security personnel had been mobilized for the NATO summit.
Democrats are now pressing the administration for more answers about the unprecedented deception operation. “I’m very interested in knowing the extent to which the intelligence provided by Israel was not only credible but independently verifiable,” Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen told the Washington Post. “I have no doubt that Iran would like to see the president dead, but the whole thing seems somewhat surreal.”
