$15M in Turkey
Ex-Donald pal eyed in a plot to kidnap exile
INVESTIGATORS ARE looking into a proposed scheme that would have landed President Trump’s disgraced national security adviser Michael Flynn and his son $15 million for delivering an exiled cleric into Turkish hands, according to a report on Friday.
While Flynn has come under investigation for his ties both to Russia and Turkey, the Wall Street Journal reported that special counsel Robert Mueller is zeroing in on an aborted plot to kidnap Poconos preacher Fetullah Gulen.
FBI agents have asked at least four people about a December meeting at the 21 Club in Midtown where Flynn and Turkish government officials allegedly discussed capturing Gulen, according to the Journal. They discussed the possibility of taking him by private jet to a Turkish prison island.
Flynn at the time was an aide to the Trump campaign and the President had already announced he would serve as White House national security adviser.
The focus on Flynn is part of Mueller’s probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded in Russian interference into the presidential election. Investigators are also looking into whether Flynn’s work on behalf of Turkey violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires people to disclose work for foreign governments.
Gulen has lived in a compound in rural Pennsylvania since 1999 after coming to the U.S. for health reasons. The Turkish government has blamed him for a failed coup last summer.
Turkey formally requested Gulen’s extradition last September and as the process dragged on they allegedly reached out to Flynn to discuss forcibly removing him from the U.S. The Journal report did not allege that any money actually changed hands and did not detail how far the plan may have developed.
Flynn’s lawyers called the report false as well as “outrageous and prejudicial.”
Flynn penned an op-ed for The Hill last November saying that Gulen is a “shady Islamic mullah,” and did not disclose until after he had left the White House this year that his company was being paid $530,000 by Turkish interests.
Probers are also eyeing a meeting Flynn had last September with Russia-loving Rep. Dana Rohrbacher(R-Calif.), NBC reported Friday. Rohrbacher has long called for warmer ties with Russia. The meeting took place in Washington on Sept. 20 and was arranged by Flynn’s lobbying firm.