Trump denies staging secret plane switch in Turkey, blames Secret Service

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President Donald Trump denied Tuesday that he played a role in orchestrating a dramatic ruse to secretly switch planes to depart Turkey in early July, following reports that most of the decoy plane’s passengers were unaware of the move.

“It’s only up to Secret Service,” Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One in Ohio. “I just follow what they like to do.”

The clandestine operation, first reported by The Washington Post on Monday, involved the president being covertly shuttled off an Air Force One jet to a smaller military plane by an airport catering truck.

The switch took place after the president boarded the traditional jet in front of television cameras. Journalists and many administration staff who remained on Air Force One were unaware of the switch and their role as unwitting decoys, The Post reported.

Trump claimed at the time that he was riding the recently retired Air Force One jet — instead of a Qatari-gifted Boeing 747-800 which the president flew into Ankara on — for “ old time’s sake .” But subsequent news reports suggested the Secret Service had become aware of an Iranian threat, leading to the older jet to be used. The flight out of Turkey on July 8 occurred just a day after the U.S. renewed military strikes on Iran after the collapse of peace talks.

Trump then reboarded the older jet to descend its stairs upon his arrival to the United Kingdom, though the Post story was unable to determine how he reentered the plane.

Trump on Tuesday didn’t elaborate much on the threat, telling reporters: “I guess there was a threat out here. I really didn’t ask too much.”

Earlier on Tuesday, the White House Correspondents’ Association said it had expressed concerns to administration officials about how the subterfuge impaired reporters’ ability to report on the president’s movements and their safety, CNN reported .

But, Trump argued Tuesday that he believed the plane he was flying on was “at greater risk because that would be the plane that they would be more likely to go for.”

The originally represented decision to travel on the older Air Force One jet instead of the Qatari-gifted plane raised questions about the security of the newer plane. The Trump administration subpoenaed reporters for The New York Times over their reporting around the security of the plane, but later withdrew it after the Times challenged the demands in courts.