‘Flynn planned to deliver Gulen to Turkey for $15m’
WASHINGTON:Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether US President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser Michael Flynn was involved in an alleged plan to seize a Muslim cleric and deliver him to Turkey in exchange for money, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
Under the plan, Flynn and his son Michael Flynn Jr were to receive $15 million if they forcibly removed Fethullah Gulen from his home in the US and delivered him to the Turkish government, sources told the Journal.
The alleged plan emerged during Mueller’s wider investigation of possible Russian interference in the 2016 election, the sources told the Journal. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses Gulen of instigating a failed coup in July 2016 and wants him extradited to face trial. Gulen denies any role in the coup.
A spokesman for Mueller’s team declined to comment on the report on Friday.
The Journal reported that FBI agents asked at least four people about a December meeting in New York where Flynn and Turkish government representatives discussed removing Gulen, according sources.
Flynn is a central figure in Mueller’s investigation because of conversations he had with Russian envoy Sergei Kislyak last year and because he waited until March to retroactively register with the justice department as a foreign agent for the work he did for a Turkish businessman.
The discussions involved possibly flying Gulen to the Turkish prison island of Imrali, a person who has spoken to the FBI told the paper. REUTERS