Unnamed sources have claimed that the White House asked for a warship named after "President" Donald Trump's late rival, Senator John McCain, to be obscured during the president's trip to Japan.
Following the reports, the Navy Chief of Information posted a Tweet to say it "was not obscured" and that plans to move the USS John S. McCain out of view had been later scrapped by senior Navy officials.
Mr Trump denied making the request, tweeting that he "was not informed about anything" relating to the ship. He did admit later that in a cabinet meeting he had suggested that he would like it to be sunk and he had absolutely not given orders to scuttle it.
The Chief of Information's Tweet - the first in five years - added that "the Navy is proud of that ship, its crew, its namesake and its heritage". However, the statement did not deny that an initial request was made.
Further Tweets confirmed that the US Navy does, indeed, have a policy of hiding vessels or "obscuring" the names of its ships in politically sensitive situations:
USS Rainbow Warrior was sent out of New York's harbour during a state visit by Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe in 2010 for fear of confirming his rabid belief that US politics is dominated by a homosexual cabal.
In the 1990s the submarine USS Mackerel was ordered to remain submerged while in Canadian waters during a dispute over fishing rights.
USS Enterprise and its crew were left in orbit around Mizar 5 for the entire duration of its five-year mission, to avoid antagonising the Klingon government, despite TV producers' complaints.
