Suddenly, a lot of the people who used to lampoon Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s eternal quest to get his hands on Pennsylvania-based cleric Fethullah Gulen no longer want to talk about it.
Similarly, that same cadre of prominent political and financial bloggers no longer seems particularly interested in taking anything more than a perfunctory approach to covering Reza Zarrab, the gold trader accused of evading U.S. sanctions on Iran with the help of high level Turkish officials possibly including Erdogan himself.
Those two stories – Erdogan’s enduring, and increasingly quixotic effort to get Gulen out of the U.S., and the figurative and literal trials and tribulations of Reza Zarrab – used to be a preoccupation for some members of the alt-Right underworld. But not so much anymore. And can you guess why?
Here’s a hint:
That’s former national security adviser and current man who doesn’t see what’s so goddamn funny about a looming indictment, Mike Flynn.
See as it turns out, Flynn is implicated in a Erdogan-backed plot to kidnap Gulen in exchange for $15 million and multiple reports suggest that Zarrab might have rolled on Flynn.
Well if Zarrab rolled on Flynn, that means Mueller might have ol’ Mike dead to rights and if he’s got Flynn senior dead to rights, that probably means he’s got Flynn Jr. dead to rights too.
That, in turn, suggests that Mueller is going to offer Flynn a deal that involves rolling on Trump (or someone close to Trump) in exchange for leniency with regard to his son. And indeed, The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Flynn’s lawyers have cut off ties with Trump’s lawyers which appears to indicate that he is indeed cooperating with the special counsel.
Meanwhile, Trump has been on the phone with Erodgan, purportedly about “peace in the middle east” and weapons shipments to the YPG.
Readout of President Donald J. Trump’s Call with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey pic.twitter.com/9m4x8r9Pii
— U.S. Embassy Türkiye (@USEmbassyTurkey) November 25, 2017
Of course we all know what the conversation was really about:
TURKEY'S ERDOGAN SAID HE HAD 'PRODUCTIVE' CALL WITH TRUMP
"what do you want to do about this Flynn thing?"
"no idea"
— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) November 24, 2017
For their part, Turkey has gone into full-on panic mode, launching a farcical “investigation” into Preet Bharara and prosecutor Joon H Kim, both of whom Erdogan swears are in cahoots with Gulen, who the Turkish president also blames for unearthing the evidence behind the Zarrab allegations.
We’ve documented all of this in a series of posts:
- A ‘Golden’ Opportunity: Mueller, Flynn, Trump And The Case Of Reza Zarrab
- Mueller Probing Flynn Plot To Kidnap Pennsylvania Cleric, Deliver Him To Turkey For $15 Million
- Roasted Turkey: Of Gold Traders, Runaway Inflation And Angry Autocrats Named Erdogan
- Panic Time! Turkey Launches Investigation Into Preet Bharara As Zarrab Debacle Spirals Out Of Control
Long story short, the writing is on the wall here. Mueller looks like he’s got Zarrab which in turn means he’s got Flynn. And now Flynn appears to be cooperating to save his son.
Well the Wall Street Journal is out with yet another piece on this. As a reminder, the Journal has been hot on the Flynn/Turkey trail all year long. It was WSJ (probably much to the chagrin of their editorial board) that broke the stories about the meetings where the Gulen kidnapping was discussed. Here are some excerpts from the Journal’s latest:
Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating former White House national security adviser Mike Flynn’s work on an unfinished film financed by Turkish interests as part of its wider probe into whether Mr. Flynn improperly concealed financial ties to Turkey and to Russia, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is preparing to interview consultants hired by Mr. Flynn to work on a documentary film targeting an exiled Turkish cleric who Ankara accuses of trying to overthrow the country’s president, according to people familiar with the investigation. Details of the unfinished film project were first reported by The Wall Street Journal in May.
Yes, and that movie was part and parcel of Flynn’s work for Turkey while he was still a top adviser to Trump’s campaign, work that included a half-million dollar contract awarded to Flynn’s company by a businessman with ties to Erdogan.
The Journal continues:
Mr. Flynn and his business partner, Bijan Kian, hired consultants to create a film attacking the Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who has been accused of orchestrating a failed July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey from his home in rural Pennsylvania. Mr. Gulen has denied playing any role in the short-lived putsch.
Mr. Flynn’s consulting firm, the Flynn Intel Group, tried to conceal its role in the documentary, said David Enders, a Beirut-based freelance journalist hired to film interviews. Mr. Enders said that Mr. Kian told him that he didn’t want anyone to know who was behind the movie.
“He said: ‘We don’t want anyone to know the Flynn Intel Group has anything to do with this,’ ” Mr. Enders told the Journal in May.
Imagine that, right?
As for what all of this means for Trump, allow former Obama administration ethics chief Norman Eisen to explain in two tweets:
You’ve got to love this bit:
They are gonna have to start frisking Jared for a wire in the Oval.
As for Trump’s lawyers, they think it’s not quite time to panic. Here’s what Jay Sekulow told the Journal:
It was not unexpected to us that Gen. Flynn’s lawyers might be entering into discussions with the special counsel [about] potential pleas. No one should draw the conclusion from that that this means anything about Gen. Flynn cooperating against the president.
I see.
You buyin’ that?
Here’s what I can tell you about Jay Sekulow. ZERO CREDIBLITY.
He has a terrible “tell.” Whenever he tells you something “specific” that’s obviously not true on its face, you can fairly conclude the opposite is true. Here, the truth is, as H implicitly suggests:
Everyone should draw the conclusion from the above set of facts that Gen. Flynn is cooperating against the president.
Perfect example of Sekulow’s ZERO CREDIBLITY “Tell”:
On July 12, 2017, Sekulow denied that he or The Donald was involved in the drafting of the initial statement put out by Trump Jr. on Junior’s meeting with the Russians. Again, on July 16, Sekulow denies that Donald was involved in drafting Jr.’s initial statement on the meeting: “I do want to be clear — that the President was not involved in the drafting of the statement.”
July 31 WaPo: Trump helped come up with misleading statement initially put out by Trump Jr. on the meeting, i.e., “In response to The New York Times’ reporting that Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer during the campaign, the President dictated a misleading statement for his son, The Washington Post reports.”
“The Post, citing multiple people with knowledge of the situation, said the original plan in response to The Times’ reporting was to issue a truthful statement ahead of the story, but then Trump personally decided to have the statement say Trump Jr. had met with Veselnitskaya to discuss adoption of Russian children by people in the US. The Post reports that Trump dictated the statement on July 8 while flying back to Washington from the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, aboard Air Force One.”
Again, Sekulow weighs in with ZERO CREDIBLITY:
“Trump’s attorney, Sekulow, said in a statement in response to the Post story, ‘Apart from being of no consequence, the characterizations are misinformed, inaccurate, and not pertinent.”
August 1: White House admits Donald came to the rescue and prepared another big lie for his impaired son, thus rendering Sekulow a HUGE ZERO.
Marty, so, in other words, not a page of words, Sekulow’s “tell” would be – his lips are moving.
I am in awe that you can keep all this data and dates so well organized! I suspect you are secretly working with Mueller! I’m right, aren’t I…well, you should be!!
P.S. I forgot to mention I cracked up with your comment at the end…. “…for his impaired son” LOL!
i’ll take credit for remembering the events but not the particular dates or the quoted material which I ripped from the web. I am secretly working with Mueller (my choice Person of the Year*) Unfortunately he doesn’t know it.
*Obviously, not Donald (once is enough), and hopefully
not Putin, who must be one of their top three on their list.
Maybe “Women” should be there choice.
Did Jared spend Thanksgiving with Donny at Mar-A-Lago? Considering it’s the first Thanksgiving for the Trumps as First Family, if he did not, it may say something about their upcoming legal destinies with each other.
Not a chance, milbank. He was up in D.C. planning his escape from NY!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5112433/Ivanka-Trump-shares-sweet-family-photo-Thanksgiving.html
You know the ONE thing that I notice that’s absent from the articles that I read about Jared that concern his failure to submit financial forms, or submit the forms properly as to security clearence, or submit the forms properly in accordance with law, or failed to submit 100 contacts he had with foreign contacts, is because the forms are so complicated, his secretaries prematurely hit the send button, he’s too busy committing some other legerdmain elsewhere (like failing to supply documents to Grassely and Feinstein), or whatever other bullshit story he’s telling?
It’s the fact that Jared Kushner is a graduate of Harvard University, with a law degrees from New York University and an MBA from New York University. So, it’s quite easy to accept the propostiion that he intentionally failed to submit proper forms or he intentionally failed to submit properly completed forms for nefarious reasons since he’s highly skilled in reading and wiriting. It’s not at all credble that he’s a poor schnook that simply has has a bad run of luck.
The truth is, trying to figure out why criminals get caught easily is a waste of time. Let them explain it
at trial if they don’t take a plea deal which sends them to jail or sends Donald back to his Towers or London Towers.
Marty, that article you linked was hysterical! When I started reading it, I thought what the crap is this, talking about their clothing, how much her ugly red coat cost ($3000!) and every detail about each person and what they wear wearing…and btw, you must have gotten lost in all the glamor talk and missed the one sentence that said they did spend the Thanksgiving day with the Head Turkey at Mar-shit-ahole and even included Tiffany. And then keep scrolling…the centerpiece I saw in another article a few days ago and a person commented “omg, even their pumpkins are white!” which cracked me up…and keep scrolling and looking at the pictures of people’s take on Ivanka’s centerpiece designs and all the trash stuff and truly was a great funny article!! Great laugh at the end of this day for me! Go back and go thru the whole thing, it is grand!
OH, one more thing, I have mentioned before, I am a word person, love good words — legerdemain — wonderful word!
You got that right, Murphy. Must have snuck them in for a 1/2 hour as reports imdicate Big Daddy and the Chief of Liars are squeezing them out of D.C.