President Donald Trump left the NATO summit last month in an unusual way: He did not board the new Qatari Air Force One, instead publicly boarded an old version of Air Force One, and then snuck off that plane on a catering delivery truck to actually fly out on yet a third plane.
Others have questioned whether it was proper to leave White House reporters, some staff, and a cabinet secretary or two on board the new Air Force One as bait to entice a feared Iranian missile. Perhaps it was; perhaps it wasn’t. I’d like to season the catering caper with a different flavor.
Security concerns have occasionally prompted presidents to conceal their travel plans. President Bill Clinton flew secretly from India to Pakistan in 2000 to attend a meeting to calm regional tensions in Kashmir. President George W. Bush made a surprise Thanksgiving trip to surprise the troops in Baghdad in 2003. President Barack Obama made a nighttime flight to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan in 2010. Concealed trips are sometimes necessary.
Here’s the rub: After the covert trips in 2000, 2003, and 2010, all of the presidential administrations acknowledged the furtive trips as soon as the president had landed or was out of the danger zone — typically within 12 to 24 hours after the trip. (Here are links establishing that for Clinton, Bush, and Obama, respectively.)
That policy makes sense: Once the president is out of harm’s way, the government should honestly discuss the deception that had taken place. There’s no legitimate reason to mislead the public unnecessarily.
Unless you’re Donald Trump.
Immediately after Trump’s trip, reporters asked Trump about the security concern that had prompted him to switch to the old Air Force One before the flight. Trump implied that he and the press were all at risk together: “If I go, you go. Right?“
What a huge psychological tell.
Trump was ashamed of his cowardice. He had just secretly flown on a different plane from the press corps, so an Iranian missile could have made the press corps “go,” but Trump would have stayed. Trump could have avoided speaking to this issue by saying only that security threats required changing planes. But Trump did not. He instead felt compelled to intentionally deceive the press, implying that he’d been on the same flight, and at the same risk, as the press pool.
That’s a guilty conscience for you, huh?
It gets worse.
The New York Times investigated the change of planes and published details of certain missing defensive measures on the Qatari Air Force One. If the truth had been known, those details were irrelevant: Trump didn’t fly on the ill-equipped Qatari Air Force One, but he also didn’t fly on the well-equipped old Air Force One. Differences between those two planes were irrelevant.
If reporters snooped around into the differences between the two planes, however, reporters might have stumbled onto the truth: Trump hadn’t flown on either plane. Trump didn’t want the press to learn that truth, because the truth revealed Trump’s cowardice, and Trump instead wanted to project the bravery that’s so central to his image of himself.
Trump thus had the Department of Justice issue multiple grand jury subpoenas to the Times journalists who had reported on the planes and moved to compel disclosure of their confidential sources. Trump didn’t want reporters snooping around into a story that, if investigated further, might reflect poorly on him, so he had the government try to intimidate the journalists. (The Justice Department later withdrew the subpoenas.)
Perhaps we should worry about the use of reporters and others as bait for an Iranian missile.
But whether or not that’s proper, unlike previous administrations, Trump chose first to imply that the covert flight hadn’t occurred at all — “If I go, you go.” His administration then chose not to reveal the truth about his covert flight immediately, as other administrations had, but instead to conceal that flight. The administration tried to coerce reporters who were investigating the story. Indeed, the Trump administration seemingly would have been glad to conceal this story forever. The truth might never have come out if the press had not independently unearthed it.
It’s not just Private Bone Spurs.
It’s Private Bone Spurs with a guilty conscience.
Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at [email protected].