Flynn, son face probe of alleged kidnap plot

Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating an alleged plan in which former White House national security adviser Mike Flynn and his son, Michael Flynn Jr., were to be paid as much as $15 million in a plot to seize Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and deliver him to Turkish officials, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the investigation.

FBI agents have asked at least four people about a meeting in mid-December in which Flynn and Turkish government representatives allegedly discussed capturing Gulen, who is in exile in the U.S., The Journal said, citing people it didn’t identify who are familiar with the FBI’s inquiries. President-elect Donald Trump already had announced that Flynn, a top campaign supporter and foreign-policy aide, was his nominee to be the White House national security adviser.

The investigation into Flynn is part of Mueller’s probe into whether Trump-campaign advisers colluded in Russian interference into the 2016 U.S. 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.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has demanded the extradition of his archenemy Gulen, blaming him for a 2016 coup attempt allegedly orchestrated from the U.S. U.S. officials say that Turkey has failed to provide sufficient evidence for a judge to approve extradition.

The alleged December meeting followed one on Sept. 19 attended by people including Berat Albayrak, who is Turkey’s energy minister and the son-in-law of Erdogan, and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, according to The Journal. It was then that Turkish officials first raised the possibility of forcibly removing Gulen, The Journal reported.

Flynn’s talks with Turkish officials allegedly involved a plan to forcibly take Gulen, who lives in a compound in Pennsylvania, to a private jet and fly him to the Turkish prison island of Imrali, The Journal reported, citing a person it didn’t name. There’s no indication that money was exchanged as part of that plan, it said.

Flynn resigned as Trump’s national security adviser on Feb. 13 after only 24 days on the job.