Trump-Erdogan Turkey Corruption Quick Primer
Bloomberg finally dropped a bombshell yesterday I'd been expecting for 2.5 years. Had Mueller and DOJ lawyers pursued the "Turkey Leg" portion of the #trumprussia matter (in all fairness, there should be some related cases they did pursue in grand jury materials Barr is refusing to turn over to Congress) it would've been similar to the blow up on Ukraine. It's simple, easy to understand, with just a few players.
Recall the following:
June/July 2016 Erdogan threatens to remove Trump's name from Trump Towers Istanbul.
July/Aug 2016 Mike Flynn starts going to work for Erdogan disguised through a Dutch shell co entity (Inovo). He essentially does unregistered 'lobbying work'. It's through this Erdogan-Flynn contractual agreement that the Trump-Erdogan relationship is cultivated.
Sept. 2016 Flynn gets together a group that includes ex-CIA director James Woolsey to contemplate the kidnapping of an Erdogan political rival granted political asylum in the US: Fetullah Gulen. Woolsey is against this extra-judicial maneuver and later leaks to WSJ to cover his ass.
Nov 2016 Flynn publishes and promotes a propaganda piece attacking Gulen fed to him by the Turkish government.
Jan-Feb 2017 One time anti-Islamic fundamentalist NSA Advisor Flynn (while illegally being covertly paid as agent of Turkey) goes soft and delays the final assault on ISIS.
Later in 2017 - Mueller's office inquires as to whether Flynn had any role in attempting to free Reza Zarrab and get him sent back to Turkey.
Who is Reza Zarrab? He’s an Erdogan connected money launderer who ran a racket with Iran and UAE to evade US sanctions by cleaning US money for Iran. He was arrested in Miami in 2016 and hired, you guessed it, Rudy Giuliani to help him get out of the trial. Rudy tried to push the federal judge to make this a diplomatic matter and enable the prosecution to be stalled while the State Department essentially traded him back to Turkey in an exchange. The Judge refused, threw Rudy out of court, and Zarrab ended up pleading guilty and cooperating. During the trial of other persons involved in the money laundering scheme, Zarrab spilled everything he knew to the court/jury that exposed connections to Erdogan's inner circle and Erdogan himself.
The fact that both Flynn and Rudy were working this matter made it strongly suspect Trump was the prime mover. Except we never had any proof of the president's involvement until now. Bloomberg reports Trump ordered Tillerson illegally get the prosecution terminated so that the State Department could return Zarrab to Turkey as a favor to Erdogan. Tillerson refused but shared with John Kelly what Trump had asked of him. What Trump owed Erdogan to try and offer up Zarrab is unknown, but that he tried to illegally interfere with a prosecution for his own benefit is now crystal clear. This is another angle to the investigation which not only ties in some original threads of the #trumprussia matter, but also locks in Trump and Mike Flynn in an overall racket which shows how corruption has distorted US foreign policy under Trump.
What we're seeing in Syria today is a product of such corruption.
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2019-10-09/trump-urged-top-aide-to-help-giuliani-client-facing-doj-charges