By the time President Donald Trump walked onstage at the end of last month’s NATO summit in Turkey, the plan to spirit him out of the country was already in motion.
Earlier that day, American officials had come to the president with alarming information. The Iranians knew which luxury chain hotel he’d been staying at in Ankara. They were aware of how his motorcade was moving around the Turkish capital. And they remained intent on killing him — potentially by using a shoulder-mounted missile to take down Air Force One, US officials familiar with the matter told CNN.
The level of detail Iran had been able to ascertain about Trump’s arrangements in the Turkish capital alarmed his team, even though some American officials thought it implausible an Iranian plot to kill him could be successful at the highly fortified NATO summit.
The Israeli government had shared the intelligence of the potential Iranian assassination plot with the CIA, one of the officials said. However, the agency, as well as some other Trump officials, viewed the Israeli intelligence skeptically. Some within the CIA had raised questions about the credibility of the intelligence, as well as whether Iran even had such capabilities to carry through such an attack, the official told CNN.
