from the article:
The Justice Department unsealed charges on Monday against two associates of former national security advisor Michael Flynn, detailing an alleged secret lobbying campaign on behalf of the Turkish government.
The charges, which were handed down Wednesday, were revealed one day before Flynn is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Washington, D.C. for lying to FBI agents about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.
The indictment does not name Flynn, but describes a “Person A” who matches Flynn’s description: A co-founder of a consulting group that offered services based on that person’s “national security expertise.”
It also provided new details on a case that first got Flynn, the former Defense Intelligence Agency director who resigned as President Trump’s national security advisor after lying about conversations with Russians, on federal investigators’ radar in 2016.
Here are five things to know about the connection between Flynn and Turkey.
The Turkish coup and extradition requests
On a July 2016 night, factions of the Turkish armed forces attempted to overthrow the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan defeated the coup attempt, but the ramifications have rippled through Ankara and U.S.-Turkish relations since.
Erdogan accused a Muslim cleric named Fethullah Gulen and his followers of orchestrating the attempt to oust him.
Gulen, a legal U.S. resident, has been living in rural Pennsylvania since 1999 under self-imposed exile from Turkey. He and Erdogan used to be allies before Erdogan turned on him.
Gulen denies any responsibility in the coup.
Erdogan first demanded Gulen’s extradition shortly after the coup attempt in 2016, but the Obama administration said the documents Turkey sent over had nothing to do with the coup and that Gulen’s due process rights must be respected.
The Trump administration has also publicly said Gulen is entitled to due process rights.
But reports have surfaced in recent months that the Trump administration is considering his extradition. Most recently, Turkey’s foreign minister said Sunday that Trump told Erdogan he was working on the request when they met at the G-20 summit.
The Flynn op-ed
Scrutiny on Flynn’s ties to Turkey first stemmed from an op-ed he wrote for The Hill on Election Day 2016.
In the op-ed, Flynn defended Erdogan from criticism of his crackdown on dissidents and labeled Gulen a “shady Islamic mullah” who “portrays himself as a moderate, but he is in fact a radical Islamist.”
It was later revealed that his now-defunct Flynn Intel Group had been paid $530,000 by Dutch-based company called Inovo BV, which in turn had ties to the Turkish government.
The bulk of the $530,000 contract was to produce a documentary to boost Turkey’s image, as well as to conduct research on Gulen.
In March 2017, Flynn and his consulting firm retroactively registered as foreign agents working on behalf Turkey.
In a Dec. 2017 legal filing, though, Flynn admitted lying in the March filings to the Justice Department, including by falsely stating that the Flynn Intel Group did not know to what extent the Turkish government was involved in the project and that the op-ed was written on his own initiative.
