McCain calls for ousting Turkey’s top U.S. envoy
Prosecution urged for protesters’ assailants
WASHINGTON — Top congressional Republicans are demanding that the Trump administration take swift and severe action against the Turkish government in response to violence involving members of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security detail, with Sen. John McCain saying the U.S. “should throw their ambassador the hell out of the United States of America.”
McCain of Arizona, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, expressed outrage Thursday at video that appears to show Erdogan’s bodyguards violently breaking up a protest earlier this week outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington.
On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, McCain said “this kind of thing cannot go unresponded to diplomatically.” He suggested that lawsuits should be filed if the responsible bodyguards can be identified.
McCain and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, told Erdogan in a letter they sent Thursday that the “actions of your staff violate the constitutional protections of freedom of the press and freedom of assembly enjoyed by all Americans.” They said they expected “conduct more appropriate” from Turkey, a member of NATO and a key U.S. ally.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said he wants “people prosecuted.”
“If there were any Turkish Embassy officials involved in beating up these protesters, I will call for them to be removed from the country,” said Graham, the GOP chairman of the Senate subcommittee that controls the foreign affairs budget.
A congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two members of Erdogan’s security detail were detained on the scene Tuesday by diplomatic security agents. The State Department later said it released two members of Erdogan’s security detail after a brief detention. The department declined to say whether the security agents were granted diplomatic immunity or under what conditions they were released.
The State Department also said it summoned Turkish Ambassador Serdar Kilic to discuss the altercation and that there’s an ongoing investigation that will allow the U.S. “to hold the responsible individuals accountable.”
The remarks from Graham and McCain come after Rep. Ed Royce of California, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called on President Donald Trump’s administration to investigate whether criminal charges are warranted against any of the bodyguards.
Royce detailed his request for an inquiry in a letter sent Wednesday to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He wrote that bodyguards with Erdogan on his official state visit to Washington “viciously beat multiple individuals, throwing them to the ground and kicking them in the head.”
The violence occurred after Erdogan returned from a White House meeting with Trump. Video shows people pushing past police to confront a small group of protesters across the street in Sheridan Circle.
Attacking the small group of protesters with their fists and feet, men in dark suits and others were recorded repeatedly kicking one woman as she lay curled on a sidewalk. Another person wrenches a woman’s neck and throws her to the ground. A man with a bullhorn is repeatedly kicked in the face. In all, nine people were hurt.
In a statement, the Turkish Embassy blamed the violence on the demonstrators, saying they were “aggressively provoking Turkish-American citizens who had peacefully assembled to greet the president. The Turkish-Americans responded in self-defense and one of them was seriously injured.”