Flynn associates charged with illegally lobbying for Turkey
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment Monday charging two business associates of Michael Flynn with acting as agents of the Turkish government and described in remarkable detail how the three attempted to shape U.S. policy and public opinion to advance that country’s interests.
Throughout the fall of 2016, while Flynn served publicly as a key surrogate and foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, prosecutors say he and business partner Bijan Kian took hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Turkish government to push for the extradition from the U.S. of dissident cleric Fethullah Gulen. Their efforts, prosecutors said, were directed by Kamil Ekim Alptekin, a Turkish businessman with close ties to the country’s leadership.
U.S. law enforcement has repeatedly rejected Turkey’s bid to send the cleric back to his home country despite pressure from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who believes Gulen responsible for a failed 2016 coup attempt. By prosecutors’ account, the foreign government found a powerful and enthusiastic ally in Flynn — one who was willing on the eve of the presidential election to pen an op-ed pushing for Gulen’s expulsion.
That piece in The Hill, which called Gulen a “radical cleric ... running a scam,” was the culmination of a monthslong public and private lobbying campaign for which the Turkish government agreed to pay Flynn’s consulting f i rm $600,000, according to the indictment.
The money was funneled through a company run by Alptekin, who also arranged meetings and delivered guidance from his country’s leaders, according to the indictment.
Kian and Alptekin are charged with conspiracy and acting as agents of a f oreign government; Alptekin is also accused of making false statements. Kian made his first appearance in Alexandria federal court Monday; Alptekin remains in Turkey.
While Flynn’s efforts to have Gulen extradited from the U.S. were previously known, the indictment demonstrates the extent to which he was working to advance the interests of his Turkish clients.
Negotiations began in July 2016, according to the court records, after the Justice Department told the Turkish government that Gulen could not be extradited without more evidence of wrongdoing.
“We are ready to engage on what needs to be done,” Kian wrote Alptekin, on July 27.
“I just finished in Ankara after several meetings to- day” with Turkish ministers, Alptekin wrote back to Kian — who also goes by Rafiekian — and Flynn the next month, according to the indictment. “I have a green light to discuss confidentiality, budget, and the scope of the contract.”
That contract, drawn up in September 2016, required the Flynn Intel Group to “deliver findings and results including but not limited to making criminal referrals” against Gulen.
That same month, according to the indictment, Flynn, Kian, and Alptekin met with high-level Turkish officials in New York to discuss the campaign. Over the next two months Flynn’s firm lobbied a member of Congress, a congressional staffer and a state government official, according to the indictment. But in October, Alptekin complained that there had been no “smoking gun.” Kian, according to prosecutors, in response produced a draft of the op-ed, which compared Gulen to Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini and argued the U.S. should not provide a “safe haven” for the cleric.
“The arrow has left the bow!” Kian emailed Alptekin on Nov. 4, 2016. “This is a very high profile exposure one day before the election.”