Trump adviser linked to Turkish lobbying
Donald Trump wants to forbid his officials from lobbying for foreign governments, but one of his top national security advisers is being paid by a close ally of Turkey’s president.
Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a vice chair of the Trump transition who is in the running for a top national security post in the new administration, runs a consulting firm that is lobbying for Turkish interests, an associate told POLITICO. Asked if Flynn’s firm was hired because of the general’s closeness to Trump, the associate, Robert Kelley, said, “I hope so.��
Kelley told POLITICO that the client, a Dutch consulting firm called Inovo BV, was founded by Kamil Ekim Alptekin. Alptekin is chairman of the Turkish-American Business Council, known as TAIK, an arm of the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey, whose members are chosen by the country’s general assembly and economic minister. In that role, Alptekin was involved in organizing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Washington earlier this year.
The Turkish government’s connection to Flynn’s client was first reported by the Daily Caller.
A lobbying registration posted Sept. 30 said that Kelley, a former chief counsel to the House National Security Subcommittee, would lobby on bills funding the departments of State and Defense.
“We’re going to keep them informed of U.S. foreign and domestic policy,” Kelley said in a phone interview. “They want to keep posted on what we all want to be informed of: the present situation, the transition between President Obama and President-Elect Trump.”
Kelley said he didn’t know if the client presented a conflict of interest. A spokesman for Flynn said he was too busy to answer questions. The Trump transition didn’t answer a request for comment.
The “contract with the American voter” released by the Trump transition pledges to instate “a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.”
Kelley and Alptekin both denied that Inovo, which was formed in 2005, is linked to the Turkish government.
“Flynn Intel Group has no commercial relationship with the government of Turkey and Lt. General Michael Flynn’s public statements on foreign affairs and national security issues are entirely his own,” Kelley said in a subsequent statement.
“I am concerned about the future of the transatlantic relationship,” Alptekin said in an email. “I have absolutely no affiliation with the policies of the Turkish government.”
Flynn wrote an op-ed published in The Hill on Election Day arguing that the U.S. should not provide “safe haven” to Fethullah Gülen, the Pennsylvania-based cleric who the Turkish government has accused of masterminding this summer’s failed coup. (Gülen denies the allegation.)
“We need to see the world from Turkey’s perspective,” Flynn wrote. “What would we have done if right after 9/11 we heard the news that Osama bin Laden lives in a nice villa at a Turkish resort while running 160 charter schools funded by the Turkish taxpayers?”
Flynn compared Gülen to Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran and tied Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin to an academic journal that he said promoted “radical Muslim thinkers.” (A Washington Post fact-check debunked that characterization of the journal.) He did not disclose his firm’s lobbying contract in the article.
Kelley said he didn’t know if Flynn’s op-ed was related to the lobbying contract. But he suggested reading a recent New Yorker article about Gulen that gave credence to his followers’ role in the attempted overthrow.
Alptekin told POLITICO the op-ed wasn’t done for him.
“If he had asked me whether to publish it, I would have advised against it for a variety of reasons,” he said. “But frankly, I do not think General Flynn consults anyone before giving his opinion on national security issues.”
In response to the op-ed, Gülen’s lawyers at Steptoe & Johnson said in a statement, “We hope that Mr. Flynn’s op-ed on Mr. Gülen and Turkish-American relations, published before the results of the election were known, is not a statement of policy for President-Elect Trump. The extradition process is a serious one, governed by treaty with Turkey that is clear about the steps that need to be taken in such cases. It should not be a political matter.”
The Alliance for Shared Values, a nonprofit affiliated with the Gulenist movement in the U.S., said hiring Flynn’s firm appeared to be part of a Turkish government smear campaign against the cleric.
“This is just another example of the Turkish government spending significant amounts of taxpayer dollars to spread falsehoods and persecute any critics without evidence of wrongdoing,” it said in a statement.
The lobbying registration didn’t say how much Flynn’s company was being paid, and Kelley said he didn’t know. It’s the first-ever lobbying registration for Flynn Intel Group, which the general founded after leaving government in 2014.
The routing of a government-linked lobbying effort through a European organization smacks of the lobbying scandal that helped bring down Paul Manafort as Trump’s campaign chairman this summer. The Associated Press revealed that Manafort, as an adviser to a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine, coordinated U.S. lobbying through a Brussels-based think tank.
Flynn, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, is widely considered a contender for defense secretary or national security adviser. The former role would require a congressional waiver because he has not yet been a civilian for seven years.
Flynn has ruffled national security circles by appearing on Russian state-fund television and accompanying Trump to classified briefings.
Nahal Toosi contributed reporting.