The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is probing a plot for Michael Flynn and his son to kidnap a cleric living in the U.S. and deliver him to the Turkish government.
Source: Flynn and his son were to be paid $15m to kidnap a cleric | Daily Mail Online
Disgraced Trump adviser Michael Flynn probed over plot to kidnap cleric and render him to Turkey for $15 million – then secretly do Turkey’s bidding in the White House
- The Wall Street Journal broke the news Friday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is probing a kidnapping plot involving Michael Flynn and his son
- Flynn, and Michael G. Flynn, reportedly discussed with Turkish officials snatching cleric Fethullah Gulen and loading him on a private plane
- Gulen, considered a political enemy to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, would have been taken to the Turkish prison island of Imrali, sources say
- NBC News also reported details of the meeting, including that investigators are looking into a quid pro quo deal between Flynn and Turkey
- There are allegations that Flynn would be paid to do Turkey’s bidding while serving as President Trump’s national security advisor, a job he’d been offered
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is probing an alleged plot for Michael Flynn and his son to kidnap a cleric living in the U.S. and deliver him to the Turkish government for a $15 million fee.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan viewed cleric Fethullah Gulen as an enemy of the state and had been pressing the United States to extradite him.
The Journal reported that FBI agents have asked at least four individuals about a meeting in mid-December in which Flynn and a representative from the Turkish government discussed putting Gulen on a private jet and carting him off to the Turkish prison island of Imrali.
NBC News then reported that investigators are also looking into allegations of a quid pro quo that was discussed at that same meeting, with Flynn being paid to do Turkey’s bidding, while serving as President Trump’s national security advisor, a job he had already been offered.
The meeting was held at New York City’s ’21’ Club, just a few blocks from Trump Tower, where Flynn was working at the time as part of President-elect Trump’s transition team.
The Wall Street Journal said its sources weren’t on hand at the December meeting, but were familiar with the Mueller investigation, though didn’t know how deep the special counsel was probing the kidnapping plot.
There is no indication the $15 million for the scheme changed hands.
NBC News reported that Mueller is also looking into whether Flynn and the Turks discussed, at the December meeting, how to free Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, who is facing federal charges over helping the Iranians evade U.S. sanctions.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a top Trump surrogate, is a member of Zarrab’s defense team.
NBC also noted the $15 million figure, though suggested it would be paid to Flynn if he could accomplish getting Zarrab freed and Gulen imprisoned back in Turkey.
The December meeting was a follow-up conversation to a discussion that happened in September between Flynn, Erdogan’s son-in-law and Turkey’s foreign minister, a meeting attended by former CIA Director James Woolsey.
Woolsey told the Journal in March that he arrived at the meeting as participants discussed how to get Gulen out of the U.S. without going through the formal extradition process.
The Turkish officials talked of forcibly removing Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, from the United States. The Erdogan government has blamed Gulen for the failed July 2016 coup and said that he and his supporters represent a terrorist network.
Woolsey told the newspaper he found the topic ‘startling,’ the word the Journal used, as he believed such action may be illegal.
The former CIA head, who had served as a Trump campaign adviser on national security policy, said the talk was hypothetical, but the idea was a ‘covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away,’ he told the Journal.
Flynn disclosed the September meeting to the Justice Department in February as part of his Foreign Agent Registration Act filing.
A spokesman for Flynn, Price Floyd, told the paper in March that ‘at no time did Gen. Flynn discuss any illegal actions, nonjudicial physical removal or any other such activities.’
On the kidnapping story, lawyers for both Flynn and his son didn’t comment. Neither did a spokesperson for Mueller.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5069871/Flynn-son-paid-15m-kidnap-cleric.html#ixzz4y4Dkp89t
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