Rotten to the core
Trump Adviser Michael Flynn Probed Over Plot
to Kidnap Cleric and Render Him to Turkey
For $15 Million
The Wall Street Journal broke the news
Friday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller
is probing a kidnapping plot involving
Michael Flynn and his son
Flynn, and Michael G. Flynn, reportedly
discussed with Turkish officials snatching
cleric Fethullah Gulen and loading him on a
private plane
Gulen, considered a political enemy to
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,
would have been taken to the Turkish prison
island of Imrali, sources say
NBC News also reported details of the
meeting, including that investigators are
looking into a quid pro quo deal between
Flynn and Turkey
There are allegations that Flynn would be
paid to do Turkey's bidding while serving as
President Trump's national security advisor,
a job he'd been offered
By Nikki Schwab
November 10, 2017 "Information Clearing House" - The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is probing an alleged plot for Michael Flynn and his son to kidnap a cleric living in the U.S. and deliver him to the Turkish government for a $15 million fee.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan viewed cleric Fethullah Gulen as an enemy of the state and had been pressing the United States to extradite him.
The Journal reported that FBI agents have asked at least four individuals about a meeting in mid-December in which Flynn and a representative from the Turkish government discussed putting Gulen on a private jet and carting him off to the Turkish prison island of Imrali.
NBC News then reported that investigators are also looking into allegations of a quid pro quo that was discussed at that same meeting, with Flynn being paid to do Turkey's bidding, while serving as President Trump's national security advisor, a job he had already been offered.
The meeting was held at New York City's '21' Club, just a few blocks from Trump Tower, where Flynn was working at the time as part of President-elect Trump's transition team.
The Wall Street Journal said its sources weren't on hand at the December meeting, but were familiar with the Mueller investigation, though didn't know how deep the special counsel was probing the kidnapping plot.
There is no indication the $15 million for the scheme changed hands.
NBC News reported that Mueller is also looking into whether Flynn and the Turks discussed, at the December meeting, how to free Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, who is facing federal charges over helping the Iranians evade U.S. sanctions.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a top Trump surrogate, is a member of Zarrab's defense team.
NBC also noted the $15 million figure, though suggested it would be paid to Flynn if he could accomplish getting Zarrab freed and Gulen imprisoned back in Turkey.
The December meeting was a follow-up conversation to a discussion that happened in September between Flynn, Erdogan’s son-in-law and Turkey’s foreign minister, a meeting attended by former CIA Director James Woolsey.
Woolsey told the Journal in March that he arrived at the meeting as participants discussed how to get Gulen out of the U.S. without going through the formal extradition process.
The Turkish officials talked of forcibly removing Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, from the United States. The Erdogan government has blamed Gulen for the failed July 2016 coup and said that he and his supporters represent a terrorist network.
Woolsey told the newspaper he found the topic 'startling,' the word the Journal used, as he believed such action may be illegal.
The former CIA head, who had served as a Trump campaign adviser on national security policy, said the talk was hypothetical, but the idea was a 'covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away,' he told the Journal.
Flynn disclosed the September meeting to the Justice Department in February as part of his Foreign Agent Registration Act filing.
A spokesman for Flynn, Price Floyd, told the paper in March that 'at no time did Gen. Flynn discuss any illegal actions, nonjudicial physical removal or any other such activities.'
On the kidnapping story, lawyers for both Flynn and his son didn't comment. Neither did a spokesperson for Mueller.
Investigators are looking into what role the younger Flynn played in his father's dealings as he worked alongside him at their company Flynn Intel Group.
NBC News had reported on Sunday that federal investigators had enough evidence to charge Flynn and his son.
The grand jury is continuing to interview witnesses about Flynn's business activities over the next week, two people familiar with the investigation also told NBC News.
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This investigation is another tentacle of Mueller's expansive probe into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election as the special counsel examines whether there was collusion between the Kremlin and any of President Trump's associates.
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn had been one of Trump's foreign policy advisers during the campaign and briefly served as his White House national security advisor, though resigned in February – the first of many heads to roll in the Trump administration.
Flynn was caught lying to Vice President Mike Pence over conversations he had with Russian officials over sanction during the transition period.
He had initially denied sanctions had been discussed.
His son, Michael G. Flynn, had been doing work for the Trump transition team, but got booted when he tweeted about the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, a made-up story about Hillary Clinton and her Campaign Chairman John Podesta running a child trafficking ring out of the basement of a D.C. pizza parlor.
The younger Flynn tweeted Friday morning, not about the Wall Street Journal report, but about the brewing scandal in Alabama over Senate candidate Roy Moore sexually pursuing teenage girls as a bachelor in his 30s, with some of the allegations suggesting abuse
The junior Flynn tweeted Friday morning, not about the brewing kidnapping saga, but about Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, who was accused by a number of women, in a story in the Washington Post, of sexually pursuing them as teenagers – with some of the candidate's actions looking like sex abuse.
'Funny how I don’t remember seeing #KevinSpaceyChildMolester #RoyMooreChildMolester,' wrote the younger Flynn, suggesting Moore was being given a harder time than actor Kevin Spacey, who is accused of sexually abusing minor men.
In recent weeks, Spacey has been fired from House of Cards and will be erased from Director Ridley Scott's 'All the Money in the World' film. So far, Moore remains in the Alabama Senate race.
This article was originally published by Daily Mail -
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