The Department of Justice has charged two business associates of Michael Flynn with conspiring to lobby U. S. officials on behalf of Turkey.
Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors charged two business associates of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn on Dec. 17 with conspiring to lobby U. S. officials on behalf of Turkey and lying to cover up the alleged crime.
In an indictment, unsealed in the federal court, the U. S. government accuses Bijan Rafiekian and Kamil Ekim Alptekin of conspiring to influence U. S. officials and the public on behalf of the Turkish government.
Rafiekian founded the Flynn Intel Group with Flynn to offer advisory services based on Flynn’s national security expertise. Alptekin, a dual Dutch-Turkish citizen, engaged Flynn and Rafiekian to conduct an opposition research and lobbying effort focusing on Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish imam and writer living in the United States.
Alptekin and Rafiekian conspired to cover up the fact Turkey’s government had approved the budget for a direct lobbying project, according to the indictment. Alptekin used his Netherlands-based company Inovo BV to conceal the source of payments to Flynn Intel Group, according to court documents.
Flynn, his company, and Inovo BV are not named in the indictment ( pdf), but their identity can be discerned based on Flynn’s Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) filing ( pdf), lobbying disclosures with Congress ( pdf), and the Dutch business registration for Inovo BV ( pdf).
Prosecutors from the U. S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of Virginia unsealed the charges against Alptekin and Rafiekian on the day before Flynn’s sentencing hearing. In a case being prosecuted by special counsel Robert Mueller, Flynn admitted to making false claims in the FARA filing about the Turkish lobbying project.
