Bill Clinton Used a Decoy Plane Once, Too

President Trump and the Secret Service deployed an elaborate deception involving a decoy plane as Trump departed a NATO summit last month, and the Washington Post reports that Bill Clinton required a similar trick as president because of security concerns. In 2000, a jet with Air Force One markings landed in Islamabad, Pakistan, and a Secret Service agent resembling Clinton disembarked. Soon after, an unmarked plane landed, and the real Clinton stepped out.

However, the Post points out one key difference: Back in 2000, the White House informed Susan Page of USA Today, then head of the White House Correspondents' Association, of the ruse beforehand. The press received no such heads-up this time. Trump was moved from a plane marked as Air Force One to a smaller unmarked Air Force plane—via a catering truck—and the press still aboard the decoy plane was not informed, notes the New York Times. In fact, they were instructed to shut their window shades.

The White House has not commented on the operation's impact on journalists, citing only the need to counter serious threats against Trump. But Garrett Graff, a media historian, calls the lack of information provided to journalists unprecedented. "That the White House would lie to the press corps in its entirety about where the president is—that's a new Rubicon that's being crossed."