Let's talk Turkey

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Re: Let's talk Turkey

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Oct 16, 2019 4:53 pm

Chris Hayes
That bizarre letter was sent a week ago, FYI. Meaning it was...basically thrown in the trash by Erdogan.


The letter from Trump is dated three days after the White House released a late night statement announcing Turkey’s imminent invasion of Syria and stating that US troops would steer clear of it.

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Turkey ‘effectively holding 50 US nuclear bombs hostage’ at air base
White House officials scrambling to retrieve weapons of mass destruction, reports say

An estimated 50 US nuclear bombs are effectively being held hostage in Turkey as Washington attempts to find a diplomatic way of responding to the country’s invasion of Syria, officials are reported to have warned.

The withdrawal of American troops from northern Syria – creating a power vacuum that has allowed Turkey and Russia to move into the region and displace Washington’s Kurdish allies – has caused international outcry.

And as even his supporters accuse the White House of betraying its allies, Donald Trump has been forced to escalate his opposition to Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, threatening to “destroy” his counterpart's economy and contract America’s alliance with Ankara.

However, the rapid pace of withdrawal and the tumultuous decline of relations between the two countries has left administration officials scrambling to find a plan for the nuclear weapons stored under American control at the shared Incirlik Air Base in south east Turkey, reports said.

Officials from the State Department and Energy Department, which manages Washington's nuclear arsenal, met at the weekend to consider how they might retrieve an estimated fifty tactical nuclear weapons held at the site, according to The New York Times.

One official told the paper the bombs were now effectively Mr Erdogan’s hostages. It is feared that removing the weapons could signal the end of relations between the Nato allies, while leaving them in place could put the weapons of mass destruction at risk.

The conundrum comes just a month after Mr Erdogan said it was “unacceptable” that Turkey was not allowed its own supply of the weapons under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty the country signed in 1980.

A phone call between Mr Trump and Mr Erdogan last week, and the US president's subsequent decision to withdraw from Syria after clearing out Isis-held territory, is said to have been described as an “off script” moment by American diplomats.

After announcing the removal of troops to end America’s “endless wars”, Mr Trump has been forced to repeatedly ramp up his rhetoric towards Turkey, calling for a ceasefire and slapping sanctions on top officials.

But this does not appear to have stopped the Turkish campaign. Instead Ankara has continued into the north of Syria to claim territory and target Kurdish militias who have been forced to side with America’s enemies in the Syrian government to avoid complete destruction.

In the process the Kurds have abandoned prisons holding Isis terrorists, with hundreds escaping in the first few days of the assault.

The UN has said that tens of thousands of people have been displaced so far. Reports suggest dozens have died amid accusations of war crimes.

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Meanwhile Russia has been able to assert its dominance in parts of the country previously secured by the US, stepping into the void left by the country to serve as a power broker between Turkey and Syria.

Following the withdrawal, the chair of the US Senate’s armed services committee Jack Reed said: “This president keeps blindsiding our military and diplomatic leaders and partners with impulsive moves like this that benefit Russia and authoritarian regimes.

“If this president were serious about ending wars and winning peace, he’d actually articulate a strategy that would protect against a re-emergence of Isis and provide for the safety of our Syrian partners.

“But he has repeatedly failed to do that. Instead, this is another example of Donald Trump creating chaos, undermining US interests, and benefiting Russia and the Assad regime.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 58416.html
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They could still get him out of office.
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Re: Let's talk Turkey

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Oct 21, 2019 5:48 pm

Pompeo, asked about Turkey, says Trump is ‘fully prepared’ to take military action if needed
Tucker Higgins
Published 2 hours ago
Updated an hour ago

President Donald Trump is prepared to use military force if “needed,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday when he was asked about Turkey’s attack on Kurds in northern Syria.

“We prefer peace to war,” Pompeo told CNBC’s Wilfred Frost in a taped interview that aired on “Closing Bell” on Monday. “But in the event that kinetic action or military action is needed, you should know that President Trump is fully prepared to undertake that action.”

The president is under heavy criticism for his decision to withdraw American forces from northern Syria, abandoning the Kurds, who led the ground war against ISIS. The withdrawal precipitated Turkey’s incursion into the border zone earlier this month, which has left more than 120 civilians dead, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Pompeo declined to lay out a red line for what action would prompt a U.S. military response, saying he did not want to “get out in front of the president’s decision about whether to take the awesome undertaking of using America’s military might.”

“You suggested the economic powers that we’ve used. We’ll certainly use them. We’ll use our diplomatic powers as well. Those are our preference,” Pompeo said.

The State Department declined comment on Pompeo’s remarks.

Trump told reporters at a Cabinet meeting on Monday that the U.S. “never agreed to protect the Kurds for the rest of their lives.”

“We’re not going to take a position. Let them fight themselves,” Trump said.

The U.S. imposed sanctions on Turkey last week following the country’s incursion into Syria’s northern border area, which has been occupied by Kurdish allies in America’s fight against the Islamic State group. Turkey views the Kurds as terrorists.

On Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence announced that Turkey agreed to a five-day pause in attacks as the U.S. facilitated the withdrawal of Kurdish fighters in the region. Following the completed withdrawal, the U.S. will eliminate its sanctions on the country, Pence said.

The cease-fire agreement was immediately criticized even by the president’s Republican allies in Congress, who said it gave Turkey everything it wanted while abandoning U.S. allies. In the interview, Pompeo defended the agreement, saying he was “fully convinced that that work saved lives.”

“Not only the lives of the [Syrian Democratic Forces] fighters, but the ethnic minorities in the region,” Pompeo said, referring to the Kurdish-led military force.

“Our allies see it the same way. We got real commitments to protect ethnic minorities throughout the region from the Turks in the course of negotiating that statement. I think the work that we did saved lives,” Pompeo said.

Pompeo also sought to distance Trump’s actions in the Middle East with those of his predecessor.

The former Kansas congressman was sharply critical when President Barack Obama appeared to violate his 2012 “red line” in Syria by not authorizing a threatened military strike against the country despite evidence that its forces had used chemical weapons.

Trump had pressed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan not to invade northern Syria before the Turks moved into the country. In an extraordinarily undiplomatic letter sent Oct. 9, Trump told Erdogan not to be a “tough guy.” But Erdogan reportedly threw the letter in the trash, and the country’s military operation began that day.


Donald J. Trump

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As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over...

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Asked whether Trump’s actions mimicked Obama’s, Pompeo said: “It’s fundamentally different.”

He added: “Turkey didn’t — the country that Turkey invaded, they conducted an incursion into, is Syria, a sovereign nation. We worked with Kurdish friends, the SDF up and down the Euphrates River.”

“We jointly took down the threat of the Caliphate of ISIS,” Pompeo added. “It was to the benefit of the SDF, it was to the benefit of the United States of America, and indeed, to the benefit of the world. The commitment that we made to work alongside them we completely fulfilled.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/21/pompeo- ... urkey.html
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Re: Let's talk Turkey

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Nov 01, 2019 7:13 am

Turkey: Hundreds arrested in crackdown on critics of military offensive in Syria
31 October 2019, 23:45 UTC
Hundreds of people have been detained in Turkey for commenting or reporting on Turkey’s recent military offensive in northeast Syria and are facing absurd criminal charges as the government intensifies its crackdown on critical voices, said Amnesty International in a report published today.

As the tanks rolled across the Syrian border, the government took the opportunity to launch a domestic campaign to eradicate dissenting opinions from media, social media and the streets

Marie Struthers, Amnesty International
‘We can’t complain’ reveals how last month’s offensive – Operation Peace Spring - was accompanied by a wave of repression in Turkey which swept up anyone who deviated from the government’s official line. Journalists, social media users and protesters have been accused of “terrorism” and subjected to criminal investigation, arbitrary detention and travel bans. If prosecuted and found guilty, they could face lengthy prison sentences.

“As the tanks rolled across the Syrian border, the government took the opportunity to launch a domestic campaign to eradicate dissenting opinions from media, social media and the streets. Critical discussion on issues of Kurdish rights and politics has become even further off limits,” said Amnesty International’s Europe Director, Marie Struthers.

“Language around the military incursion was heavily policed, and hundreds of people who expressed their dissenting opinions about Turkey’s military operation were rounded up and are facing investigations under anti-terrorism laws.”

Silencing of journalists

On 10 October, a day after the offensive began, Turkey’s broadcasting regulatory body (RTÜK) warned media outlets that there would be zero tolerance of “any broadcasting that may negatively impact the morale and motivation of […] soldiers or may mislead citizens through incomplete, falsified or partial information that serves the aims of terror”.

Having my home raided and my children terrorized by 30 heavily armed, masked police officers simply for some social media posts calling for peace, shows the level of suppression of freedom of expression in Turkey

Nurcan Baysal, journalist
On the same day, two journalists were detained. Hakan Demir of the daily newspaper Birgün was questioned over a tweet on the paper’s official Twitter account based on an NBC report stating that “Turkish warplanes have started to carry out airstrikes on civilian areas.”

Meanwhile Fatih Gökhan Diler, managing editor of the Diken news website, was detained after publication of an article with the headline “SDF claim: two civilians lost their lives”. Both journalists were accused of “inciting enmity and hatred” before being released with overseas travel bans pending the outcome of criminal investigations.

Police also burst into the home of journalist and human rights defender, Nurcan Baysal, at 5am on 19 October. She told Amnesty International: “Having my home raided and my children terrorized by 30 heavily armed, masked police officers simply for some social media posts calling for peace, shows the level of suppression of freedom of expression in Turkey.”

Journalist Özlem Oral was detained on the same day and questioned over tweets criticizing ‘Operation Peace Spring’ which were posted on a Twitter account not even her own. She was released the next day with an overseas travel ban, required to regularly report at a local police station, and not to leave İstanbul where she lives.

In the first week of the offensive alone, 839 social media accounts were under investigation for “sharing criminal content”

Amnesty International
On 27 October, lawyer and columnist Nurcan Kaya was detained at Istanbul airport for criticizing the offensive by tweeting “We know from experience how everything you call a peace operation is a massacre”. She was released after questioning the same day,but received an international travel ban.

It is not just Turkish journalists that have been targeted. On 25 October, President Erdoğan’s lawyers announced that they filed a criminal complaint against the director and editor of French magazine Le Point, following the publication of the October 24 issue which used the cover headline “Ethnic cleansing: the Erdoğan method” in its coverage of the military offensive. The lawyers claimed the cover is insulting to the president, a crime under Turkish law.

Targeting of social media users

In the first week of the offensive alone, 839 social media accounts were under investigation for “sharing criminal content” with 186 people reportedly taken into police custody and 24 remanded in pre-trial detention, according to official figures.

One social media user, who was detained and accused of “propaganda for a terrorist organization” had retweeted three tweets, one of which read: “Rojava [the autonomous Kurdish area in northern Syria] will win. No to War”. Like others, these tweets did not come remotely close to constituting evidence of an internationally recognizable crime.

He was given an overseas travel ban and required to report to a local police station twice a month. One lawyer told Amnesty International: “Using the words ‘war’, ‘occupation’, ‘Rojava’ has become a crime. The judiciary says ‘you cannot say no to war’.”

Targeting of politicians and activists

“Operation Peace Spring” has also been used by the government as a pretext to escalate its crackdown on opposition politicians and activists. Several MPs are currently subject to criminal investigations including Sezgin Tanrıkulu, who is facing a criminal probe for comments he made in the media, and a tweet which read: “Government needs to know this, this is an unjustified war and a war against the Kurds.”

According to lawyers from the Bar Association in Şanlıurfa province, at least 54 people were taken into police custody in the province by counter-terrorism officers on 9 and 10 October. Among them were members of the Kurdish-rooted leftist opposition People’s Democratic Party (HDP), as well as members of left-wing opposition trade unions.

Within the first week of the military offensive at least 27 people, many of whom were affiliated with HDP, were detained in Mardin province on terrorism-related charges. Detainees included the elected mayor of the town of Nusaybin. The government later replaced her with the unelected district governor.

Since the start of the military offensive, Turkey’s already entrenched atmosphere of censorship and fear has deepened

Marie Struthers, Amnesty International
On 12 October the Saturday Mothers, relatives of victims of enforced disappearances who have been holding peaceful vigils every Saturday since 2009 to remember their loved ones, were warned by police that they would break up the vigil “if they utter the word ‘war’”. The peaceful gathering was violently broken up as soon as the statement that criticized the military operation was read out.

“Since the start of the military offensive, Turkey’s already entrenched atmosphere of censorship and fear has deepened, with detentions and trumped-up charges used to silence the few who dare to utter any challenge or criticism of ‘Operation Peace Spring’,” said Marie Struthers.

“The Turkish authorities must stop gagging opinions they don’t like and end the ongoing crackdown. All charges and prosecutions of those targeted for peaceful expression of their opposition to Turkey’s military operations should be immediately dropped.”
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/ ... -in-Syria/


Boom Times for Turkey’s Lobbyists in Trump’s Washington
ADAM KLASFELDOctober 31, 2019
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MANHATTAN (CN) – Some five years ago, Turkey’s soft power suddenly swelled in the United States as the country’s lobbyists and pro-government charities received millions in newfound funding.

That was the same year that leaked tapes appeared to show then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan instructing his son Bilal to dump massive amounts of money tied to a multibillion-dollar money-laundering scheme.

“Now, what I say is, you take everything that you have in the house out,” Erdoğan could be heard telling his son, in recordings quickly viewed by millions on YouTube and translated from Turkish by the now-shuttered Turkish newspaper, Zaman.

“What can I have on me, Dad,” Bilal replied in that transcript. “There is your money in the safe.”

Made public in March 2014, the tapes depicted Erdoğan fretting that Istanbul police conducted home raids on the top officials of his ruling Justice and Development Party and his then-ally Reza Zarrab, a gold trader charged with corrupting them. The Turkish government disputed its authenticity, but academic researchers doubted claims of doctoring.

Zarrab would implicate Erdoğan in a bribery-fueled conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions against Iran three years later in a New York federal courtroom — a development Erdoğan tried to head off by lobbying intensely with reported help from President Donald Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

A Courthouse News investigation of the spending spree undertaken by the Turkish government in that interval shows money flowing to roughly half a dozen Trump-linked lobbyists, law firms and pro-Turkey charities. The top five U.S. lobbying firms registered with the Turkish government, its agencies and proxies would see their budgets more than quadruple collectively, from more than $1.7 million in 2014 to more than $7.3 million in 2018.

Gephardt Group, a longtime lobbyist for Turkey named for the Democratic congressman who founded it, cut ties with its government at the end of 2016. The new guard of registered Turkish agents that replaced Gephardt would be deeply tied to Trump and his associates.

Budgets of pro-Turkey charities linked to both Erdoğan and Trump also ballooned during this period.

Bilal Erdoğan, the son from the 2014 recordings, signed the incorporation papers of the U.S.-based charity Turken Foundation just a few months after audio of him and his father caused an uproar. Turkey’s main opposition party unearthed Turken’s IRS records showing that tie in a document request. Public records show that another of Erdogan’s children, Esra Albayrak, sat on Turken’s board.

As a tax-exempt 501(c)3 corporation, Turken does not have to disclose its donors, but it reported receiving a more than $24 million contribution the next fiscal year. Spending that money lavishly, the charity paid more than $17.5 million for the sites where it is building a 32-story skyscraper in midtown Manhattan, for use as Islamic student housing. It also bought legendary boxer Muhammad Ali’s farm in Michigan earlier this year for a reported $2.5 million.

Hacked emails published by WikiLeaks showed Bilal Erdoğan’s interest in a different midtown Manhattan property, valued at $25 million, that Trump Organization representative Elena Baronoff had been offering in 2013.

Known as Trump’s “Russian hand,” Baronoff died of leukemia two years later.

Turken did not reply to an email requesting comment.

Here is a breakdown of the top players in pro-Turkey lobbying and charity between 2014 and 2018.



Gephardt Gets Out
More than a decade ago in 2009, a ProPublica investigation found that the Turkish government’s lobbyists contacted members of Congress more often than those from any other country.

A year before that article, Turkey first signed its contract with former Missouri Representative Richard Gephardt. Turkey had been successful in projecting an image of Erdoğan as a bridge between political Islam and liberal democracy, but Erdoğan’s corruption scandal — and his response to it — stained that international goodwill starting in late 2013.


Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan waves to supporters of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara, Turkey, on June 25, 2018. (Presidency Press Service via AP, Pool)
Once the leaked tapes of his son hit the internet, Erdoğan tried to ban Twitter and purge the prosecutors investigating him. Records that Gephardt disclosed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act show the firm spinning issues of “internet freedom” in Turkey with U.S. legislators and responding to the concerns of the House Foreign Affairs Committee about “The Future of Turkish Democracy.”

Amid Erdoğan’s autocratic rise, Gephardt Group hired five subcontractors to help manage Turkey’s bruised international image: Dickstein Shapiro LLP and LB International Solutions in 2014; Greenberg Traurig and Capitol Counsel in 2015; and longtime congressional staffer Brian Forni in 2016.

Gephardt could not be reached directly. The firm’s vice president, Greg Carnrick, did not respond to phone and email requests for comment.

Asked by phone to explain why the firm terminated its eight-year contract with the Turkish government, Janice O’Connell — one of Gephardt’s former lobbyists for Turkey — supplied a one-word answer.

“No,” O’Connell replied, abruptly hanging up the phone.

Some Gephardt subcontractors continued to work for Greenberg Traurig, a billion-dollar legal powerhouse that took over Turkey’s lobbying contract the same year Giuliani took on Zarrab as a client.



Giuliani’s Role Grows
In 2017, leading up to the Zarrab trial, the Turkish government ratcheted up its legal, diplomatic and lobbying offensive. Ditching the firm led by the Democratic Gephardt, the Turkish government signed on two firms connected to influential Republicans.

Ballard Partners, whom Politico dubbed the “Most Powerful Lobbyist in Trump’s Washington,” made more than $4 million on two contracts: nearly $2 million from the Turkish embassy and more than $2 million from Halkbank, the Turkish state-run bank indicted just this past fall in New York. For that sum, the firm dispatched a trio of agents deeply tied to Trump’s State Department, Treasury Department and White House.

The second firm, Greenberg Traurig, tilted slightly Republican in its political donations from 2016, but it had a partner with a direct line to Trump: Giuliani. The former New York City mayor shuttled between the White House and Turkey’s capital of Ankara to push for a prisoner swap that would have blocked damning testimony from Zarrab that accused Erdoğan of ordering billions of dollars in illicit trades through Halkbank.

Giuliani’s growing reputation as a shadow secretary of state for the Trump administration, in both Turkey and Ukraine, has alarmed Democrats on Capitol Hill. Seven senators signed a letter over a year ago that asked the Department of Justice to assess whether Giuliani has complied with registration requirements for foreign agents.

Senator Tammy Duckworth, one of the signers, is still waiting for the Justice Department to respond after following up on that inquiry last month.

“I’ve asked the Justice Department twice … and I have not gotten a reply from that,” Duckworth told Courthouse News in a phone interview. “So, I’m not quite sure how Mr. Giuliani, who’s neither been elected by the American people nor confirmed by the United States Senate is out there conducting what amounts to foreign policy on behalf of the president because he’s the president’s personal attorney.”

Neither the Justice Department nor Giuliani responded to a requests for comment.


Senator Tammy Duckworth raises concerns about President Donald Trump’s conflicts of interests in a June 20, 2017, press conference. (Photo courtesy of Senator Duckworth’s office)
Duckworth also called it uncertain whether “Mr. Giuliani is also getting some personal gain from some of his actions, for example, in Turkey.”

Court documents show that Giuliani was paid directly by Zarrab, who admitted to the money-laundering scheme.

Greenberg Traurig and Giuliani cut ties in 2018 as the former mayor ramped up his work for Trump.

The firm’s shareholder Robert Mangas, who signed the Turkey lobbying contract, claims never to have spoken to Giuliani on any matter related to Turkey.

“Mr. Mangas and Mr. Giuliani never worked together on any matters related to Turkey, including the Zarrab case,” the firm’s managing director Jill Perry said.

Greenberg Traurig, whose donations have skewed Democratic in 2018, made inroads on both sides of the aisle in Congress. The firm’s most recent filing reported numerous emails and two meetings apiece with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and the chief of staff for Representative Ilhan Omar, the only member of the Democratic Party not to vote to recognize the Armenian genocide or approve sanctions against Turkey. Omar’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The firm raked in more than $5 million in fees and expenses from Turkey, paying nearly $2 million of that amount to subcontractors for the firms Capitol Counsel, Baker Donelson and LB International Solutions, whose president, Lydia Borland, helped a Turkish political action committee donate to U.S. politicians.

Enemies of Erdogan
During his clampdown on perceived opponents, Erdoğan went to war against his party’s former allies: followers of Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish-born cleric living in self-imposed exile in rural Pennsylvania. The main firm in charge of the Turkish government’s anti-Gülen offensive was Amsterdam & Partners, which hired at least 14 subcontractors, records show.

Those arrangements were properly disclosed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Federal prosecutors believe that the Turkish government nestled its way into murkier relationships with at least one Trump ally.

Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn would admit that he concealed the Turkish government’s ties to his anti-Gülen blitz, a secret foreign influence initiative branded “The Truth Campaign.”

Pennsylvania-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen
Pennsylvania-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen (Photo credit: Voice of America)
The Dutch company Inovo BV paid $600,000 to Flynn Intel Group under the contract, which included an Election Day op-ed under Flynn’s name in The Hill.

“The forces of radical Islam derive their ideology from radical clerics like Gülen, who is running a scam,” the editorial read. “We should not provide him safe haven.”

Flynn’s column compared Gülen to Iran’s mullahs and Osama bin Laden, and court papers would later show that Flynn’s Turkish proxies had written several passages. One of the alleged ghostwriters, Trump transition team member Bijan Kian, would later be convicted of unregistered foreign lobbying only to have that conviction overturned. Inovo’s founder Ekim Alptekin was also indicted but did not appear in court and is presumed to be living in Turkey.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Flynn discussed a plan with Turkish officials to “whisk” Gülen from his Pennsylvania home and back to Turkey outside the extradition process. Flynn denied that he tried to kidnap the cleric, but ex-CIA Director James Woolsey told the paper he witnessed the conversation.

Other Turkish-funded media offensives against Gülen were disclosed. Amsterdam & Partners, led by attorney Robert Amsterdam, made nearly $1.3 million in fees by vilifying Gülen for the Turkish government, and the firm paid more than a dozen subcontractors a nearly equivalent amount to assist in the task.

During a phone interview, Amsterdam denied that his crusade against Gülen was financially motivated.

“It’s more out of dedication to the cause than for profit,” the attorney remarked, adding he even “took a haircut” in that pursuit.

That cause has found multiple devotees in the Trump administration, including Giuliani, whom Bloomberg reported pushed to cut government grants to Gülen-affiliated schools across the United States.

“That’s got nothing to do with me,” Amsterdam said of Giuliani.

Amsterdam has been a vituperative critic of Gülen, echoing the Turkish government’s depiction of the cleric as a shadowy cultist behind the 2016 failed coup attempt against Erdoğan’s government.

Amsterdam even purchased an anti-Gülen billboard near his home in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. The billboard, which showed Gülen’s face next to the words “School Children at Risk,” had been intended to run on a highway in the village that the cleric calls home.


Bijan Kian, a onetime business partner to former national security adviser Michael Flynn, leaves the FBI Field Office on Dec. 17, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Amsterdam admitted to having paid for it but claimed that it never went up because of pressure from Gülen’s organization.

Alliance for Shared Values, an umbrella organization associated with Gülen’s movement, responded that they were “not aware,” but “not surprised,” that Amsterdam attempted to put that message near the cleric’s home.

“Through his agents, the Erdoğan government made several attempts to defame and harass Mr. Gülen and visitors to the retreat center where he lives,” the group’s executive director Alp Aslandogan said. “These efforts include organizing loud and profane protests, mailing defamatory fliers to neighbors, flying planes with defamatory signs and showing a defamatory film at a local theater.”

The Gülen movement, also known as Hizmet, the Turkish word for service, describes itself as a group dedicated to interfaith dialogue. The Obama administration rebuffed Turkish pressure to extradite Gülen, with former Vice President Joe Biden emphasizing the U.S. courts require due process and evidence of wrongdoing.

“Only a federal court can do that,” Biden said in August 2016. “Nobody else can do that. If the president were to take this into his own hands, what would happen would be he would be impeached for violating the separation of powers.”

Referring to the multimillion-dollar campaign against Gülen, Aslandogan added: “If the facts were on the Erdoğan government’s side, they would have spent far less and had even an ounce of success.”

Reaching out to major TV, radio and print outlets, Amsterdam’s subcontractor Stroud Communications helped tout his book titled “Empire of Deceit,” accusing Gülen-affiliated charter schools of fraud. The title inspired the parody website “Empire of the Deceit” by Amsterdam’s critics, quoting a Globe & Mail editorial that describes the Canadian attorney as a “legal gun-for-hire and a public relations svengali.”

Mercury Public Affairs, which made more than $87,000 from its contract with Amsterdam, later registered as a foreign agent for work with two Turkish clients directly. The firm made $1.6 million the year after announcing a major hire, Bryan Lanza, who served as Trump’s communications director on the presidential transition team.

Both times that Trump announced a troop withdrawal from Syria — moves in late 2018 and 2019 that stunned top U.S. security officials — Trump had just spoken on the phone with Erdoğan, and Mercury rushed to defense the decision.

Mercury, which has not responded to press inquiries, circulated an editorial by top Turkish diplomat Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu describing the United States’ longtime Kurdish allies as terrorists and another by Erdoğan, printed in The New York Times.



Business or Pleasure at Trump Hotel?
Having a new agent with deep ties in the Trump White House paid dividends for Mercury Public Affairs in taking on two major Turkish nonprofit groups as clients: Turkey-U.S. Business Council (TAIK) and the American Turkish Council (ATC).

Every year, both charities join forces to host a lavish U.S.-Turkish Conference that brings together powerful military, business and political figures from both countries to mingle and discuss the future of bilateral relations. The last two conferences took place at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.

TAIK’s current chairman Mehmet Ali Yalçındağ is Ivanka Trump’s former business partner for Trump Tower Istanbul. Alptekin, who was indicted in Flynn’s “Truth Campaign,” is a former chair.

Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, Mercury had to disclose all of its contacts with government officials and media representatives. Lanza repeatedly called and emailed the Commerce Department’s Deputy Secretary Earl Comstock on behalf of TAIK in 2018.

The next year, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross would be one of the conference’s “Distinguished Guests,” posing in a photograph next to Yalcindag.

Turkish Coalition of America, which organizes the 109-member-strong “Turkey Caucus” of U.S. Congress members, struggled for cash for much of this past decade, reporting negative revenue in 2014 and 2016. In 2017, the charity reported $4.6 million in revenue, by far the largest in that decade, after receiving a large grant from the Turkish Cultural Foundation, another Washington-based charity.

The coalition’s president Lincoln McCurdy emphasized that the charity complies with nonprofit rules in service of its mission to promote public education.

“TCA’s limited lobbying efforts are fully independent and are neither coordinated with nor controlled by any other organization or lobbying campaign, including that of the government of Turkey,” McCurdy, a former consul for commercial affairs at the U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul, said in an email.

The lobbying expenditures reported by the group represent a small fraction of what it spends in total.

Turkish Heritage Organization, a new nonprofit that sprung up in 2015, burst quickly into prominence with more than $3 million in contributions over the course of three years.

When the House was still controlled by Republicans in 2017, its Committee of Foreign Affairs heard testimony from the organizations president, Ali Cinar, about the supposed threat to Turkey’s democracy from Gülen and Kurdish militants, not its strongman leader, Erdoğan.

“There is no Turkish legislation that includes any provision that would lead to imprisonment of journalists on account of their journalistic work,” Cinar told Congress.

Under Turkey’s constitution, insulting the president is a crime, and Erdoğan’s government by then had become the world’s leading press jailer for two years running. It has held onto that record ever since.
https://www.courthousenews.com/boom-tim ... ashington/
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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