Here’s one outcome of the Turkish coup attempt that you can bet on: Washington lobbyists will be getting rich off it.
The extensive web of ties between Gulen, his supporters, and the Clintons has been amply documented by Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller. Gulen allies gave money to the Hillary Clinton campaign and to the Clinton Global Initiative, as well as between $500,000 and $1 million to the Clinton Foundation. Gulen’s supporters have also been operating a charter school network, which “60 Minutes” and others allege may be designed to funnel U.S. taxpayer money back to his supporters in Turkey.
Hillary Clinton has been out on the campaign trail calling for overturning the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision to end what she calls “the stranglehold of wealthy special interests in Washington.” Meanwhile, her non-profit foundation is going around vacuuming up millions of dollars in donations from individuals and entities that have an interest in her policies. It’s an outrageously brazen and hypocritical act of crookedness even by Clinton standards.
Getting less attention, but just as newsworthy, is that Erdogan’s government has also been spreading money around American politics.
Last month, Turkey’s embassy in Washington hired a former communications director for Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Thomas Blank, according to a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing with the Department of Justice. Turkey also earlier this year hired the firm of a former Republican congressman from Minnesota, Vin Weber, for $20,000 a month for consulting services “relating to its investigation into Fethullah Gulen and his organization in the United States.” Turkey’s embassy in Washington also earlier this year hired the Gephardt group, led by former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, for a fee of $1.7 million for 11 months work. And it spent $600,000 on a yearlong contract with a Washington firm for legal advice and representation aimed at getting Gulen extradited to Turkey from America. – READ MORE