Turkey arrested Donald Trump’s business partner just days after it stopped paying Michael Flynn
Now that Michael Flynn is admitting he took $530,000 in payments from a Turkish government intermediary while he was working as a Donald Trump campaign adviser, it’s prompting a reevaluation of the entire timeline. Turkey was paying Flynn because it wanted the U.S. to extradite a dissident named Fethullah Gulen. And shortly after Turkey stopped paying Flynn, it changed tactics by arresting Trump’s business partner in Ankara.
Here’s the timeline of events as we now know it: Turkey hired Michael Flynn in the summer of 2016 to “investigate” Fethullah Gulen, which appears to have been a euphemism for Flynn convincing Donald Trump to extradite Gulen. Turkey stopped paying Flynn in November according to a report from the New York Times. Precisely when in November? Flynn published a pro-Turkey op-ed on The Hill on November 8th, all but confirming he was still being paid up through that date. And the letter sent by Elijah Cummings to Mike Pence on November 18th gives the impression that Cummings believed Flynn was still in Turkey’s employ by that date. The timing matters.
According to a Newsweek article from Kurt Eichenwald, Turkey arrested Barbaros Muratogl — a business partner of Donald Trump — on December 1st. Muratogl’s arrest appeared to have been a strategy to try to pressure Trump into extraditing Gulen. And it came what appears to have been twelve days or less after Turkey gave up on getting any help from Flynn over Gulen, and ceased paying him.
This further underlines the notion that Turkey paid Michael Flynn more than half a million dollars with the specific intent of getting him to use his position in Donald Trump’s inner circle to get Fethullah Gulen extradited. Immediately after Turkey realized Flynn didn’t have that kind of influence, it moved on to Plan B. Flynn has more to explain than ever. Contribute to Palmer Report
