On Friday, President Donald Trump ordered an investigation into who leaked about security issues with his Qatari-gifted Air Force One. “Within 24 hours,” however, “the leak probe leaked,” and according to Miles Taylor — who himself acted as a whistleblower during the first Trump administration — this incident underscores the “incompetent” nature of the Trump administration as well as the danger it poses.
As Taylor explains, last week, “the New York Times reported something the White House desperately didn’t want Americans to know. The president’s shiny new jet (the $400 million palace-in-the-sky ‘donated’ by Qatar) isn’t actually safe. According to the paper’s sources, the plane lacks the defensive countermeasures custom-built for Air Force One, including the advanced antimissile systems that accompany the original plane. The leaks about the jet validate worries of national security commentators, myself included, who’ve warned that Trump’s scandal-plagued acceptance of a foreign jet would be riddled with security concerns.”
These leaks contradicted Trump’s asserted reasoning for bringing the old Air Force One to last week’s NATO summit in Turkey, and in the wake of the revelations, “officials described him as ‘livid,’ humiliated that the world had learned his prized gift is a flying vulnerability rather than a flying fortress.”
“So,” writes Taylor, “the president did what wannabe strongmen...
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