PARDON WATCH: The Case of K. Ekim Alptekin

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The Washington Pundit is doing a series of articles highlighting individuals currently facing unjust criminal indictment by the U.S. Dept of Justice (DOJ) and in need of a full and unconditional pardon from President Donald J. Trump.

In Part 1, we explained the case of Ari Teman, a tech entrepreneur who is the victim of prosecutorial misconduct at the hands of corrupt Southern District of New York (SDNY) federal prosecutors.

In Part 2, we focused on the case of Bijan Kian, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn’s (Ret.) business partner who is still facing unjust prosecution in the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA).

In this article, TWP highlights the case of K. Ekim Alptekin, Flynn Intel Group customer and longtime close friend of Kian, the other man Flynn agreed to testify against as part of his cooperation agreement with the DOJ.

His name may be familiar to you since his story is detailed in Lee Smith‘s book The Permanent Coup in Chapter 8: The Scope on Pgs. 111-116. In the book, Lee Smith details how Ekim’s career was crushed and his life turned upside, all in an effort to frame Flynn and ultimately President Trump.

Lee also tells about the bold stand Ekim took when offered an easy way out. Alptekin could have excepted a plea deal from the DOJ for lying to the FBI in exchange for a light sentence if he agreed to testify against Gen. Flynn. Ekim is ashamed to admit he briefly considered accepting the deal and repeating whatever fabricated story the Mueller team had concocted about his business arrangement. At the time, Flynn had already agreed to testify against Alptekin and his legal bills were piling up, and he couldn’t work or travel. He then fell back on words of his father,

You’re only a man if you have principles. And it’s only a principle if you apply it when it doesn’t suit you.

Words of Ekim’s father Sevinc Alptekin from Lee Smith’s book “The Permanent Coup”

Ekim choose to stick to his principles and reject the deal, and his life has been in legal limbo ever since. But Lee Smith’s book really doesn’t capture the level of sacrifice Alptekin has suffered or what’s happened in his life since he was interviewed last spring.

Alptekin’s life is currently a living hell. He’s trapped in a country experiencing tremendous political turmoil. He having to travel daily with body guards to avoid arrest from elements loyal to his political opposition. His indictment in the United States prevents him from being able to travel back to his home in the Netherlands to reunite with his wife and three young children. It is a grotesque abuse of the U.S. Justice System.

The Alptekin children who have unjustly been deprived of their father for far too long

From TWP’s interviews with Alptekin, we believe and can report he is a Turkish patriot who is supportive of the current democratically elected government and has been an outspoken critic of Fethullah Gülen (who we will explain more in-depth later in this article) for many years. This makes him a direct political opponent of President-Elect Joe Biden as evidenced by this December 2019 interview with the New York Times editorial board where Biden all but called for the overthrow of the current Turkish government.

Joe Biden in a December 2019 interview with the New York Times editorial board all but calling for an overthrow of the Turkish government of President Recep Erdoğan.

And now, for the rest of the story … On Nov. 8th, 2016 (Election Day in the United States), Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.) penned this Op-Ed in The Hill warning about a reclusive cult leader named Fethullah Gülen, living in a guarded compound in the Pennsylvania Poconos Mountains. TWP recently published an in-depth article on Gülen.

Gülen is a political ally of the Clintons and a major donor to the Clinton Foundation who presents himself as a moderate Islamic Imam and an educator. Gen. Flynn warned it was all a façade and Gülen was,

[I]n fact a radical Islamist” who was operating a “vast global network [with] all the right markings to fit the description of a dangerous sleeper terror network” [based out of the United States and supported by the US government]

Quote from the 2016 article in The Hill titled “Our ally Turkey is in crisis and needs our support
Video linked in the 2016 article in The Hill titled “Our ally Turkey is in crisis and needs our support

On July 15, 2016, Turkey witnessed the bloodiest coup attempt in its history. Elements of the Turkish military launched a coordinated attack in all major cities aimed at toppling the democratically elected government of Turkey. Soldiers and tanks took to the streets, major infrastructure such as airports were seized while Turkish fighter jets bombed their own parliament building. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was even kidnapped by his own security detail.

The coup attempt was put down when thousands of ordinary citizens, with the help of loyalist soldiers and police forces, took to the streets armed with makeshift weapons to face tank fire and aerial bombardments. In one night, more than 250 people were killed and thousands more were wounded. The country was thrown into turmoil by a small group of fanatics.

https://rumble.com/embed/v920gd/?pub=1087z

Over the last year, Alptekin has been giving media interviews related to Gen. Flynn and Fethullah Gülen. Alptekin is the man accused by the Mueller Office of Special Counsel (SCO) of hiring the Gen. Flynn and the Flynn Intel Group to act as an illegal foreign agent on behalf of Turkey in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Earlier this year, he addressed the nature of the contract in an interview with Mike Doran on the Counterbalance podcast.

Excerpt courtesy of Counterbalance with Michael Doran

Based on investigations by various government institutions as well as media reports, Fethullah Gülen and the Gülen Movement (FETO) were identified as the organizers of the violent coup attempt but for some reason, this fact has not been widely reported in Western media.

Excerpts from a Wall Street Journal online news segment of the background of Fethullah Gülen and his role in the failed July 15, 2016 Turkish Coup

Ekim Alptekin is a private businessman & entrepreneur who holds dual Dutch-Turkish citizenship and has been an outspoken critic of Gülen for years. Alptekin aggressively lobbied the Turkish government to hire the Flynn Intel Group to look into Gülen’s involvement in the Turkish Coup Attempt and to help expose the national security threat Gülens organization poses to both Turkey and the United States.

Alptekin himself hired the Flynn Intel Group privately in August 2016 in the hopes of producing a “proof of concept” lobbying effort to convince the Turkish government to invest more in the United States on their own lobbying efforts to combat those of the Gülenists. This type of commercial lobbying activity is 100% legal and commonplace in Washington, DC.

Alptekin saw signs that there was some interest from Turkish cabinet ministers to explore entering into their own contract with the Flynn Intel Group. During a regularly scheduled annual meeting at the United Nations, Alptekin arranged an impromptu “meet and greet” at UN Headquarters since the parties were already present. At Alptekin’s insistence, some Turkish government officials and the Flynn Intel Group agreed to the introduction, more to placate Alptekin than anything. But their engagement never went beyond there, and the existing commercial contract the Flynn Intel Group had with Alptekin’s Dutch company INOVO BV was never discussed.

Excerpt courtesy of Counterbalance with Michael Doran

There are many private intelligence companies operating inside the United States and elsewhere. As with a lot of industries, but particularly in intel gathering, there are going to be good actors like the Flynn Intel Group and bad actors like Fusion GPS or the former Podesta Group.

Segment of Seamus Bruner discusses FARA enforcement & The Podesta Group on American Thought Leaders – The Epoch Times with Jan Jekielek

Suspicions about Fethullah Gülen and the Gülenists are not a recent revelation dreamt up by the Erdoğan government. This story had been reported on before the Trump Presidency by The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and even the New York Times itself as far back as 2011.

In a May 2012 episode of CBS News 60 Minutes story (over 4 years before the July 2016 coup attempt) they investigated serious concerns about Gülen and his movement. But since then, both the US Media and The State Department have gone mysteriously silent on the subject.

Excerpts from the 60 Minutes exposé “The Gülen Movement” which originally aired in May 2012

The 2016 Turkish Coup occurred right in the middle of the Republican National Convention (RNC) when Donald Trump was nominated for his first term as US President. That same evening, Flynn gave a speech to an RNC gathering where he praised the coup. At the time of the speech, Flynn mistakenly believed Erdoğan and Gülen remained allied; unaware they had previously broken ties and become political adversaries.

Excerpt of a speech Gen. Flynn gave to a gathering at the 2016 RNC

After being hired by Alptekin and conducting the investigation, Flynn was surprised when he found how integrated the Gülenists were into the Clinton Machine, both as major contributors to the Clinton Foundation and the Hillary Clinton campaign. He was equally stunned to find that Gülenist charter schools were receiving more than $750 Million annually from US taxpayers, which Flynn highlighted in his November 2016 Op-Ed in The Hill.

The complete reversal in Flynn’s position about the Turkish Coup from July 2016 to November 2016 without any further context has been used repeatedly by Leftist partisan media hacks like Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow to smear Flynn as a “secret foreign agent for the government of Turkey”; which was then used by corrupt Dept. of Justice officials to target Flynn, Alptekin, and Flynn’s longtime business partner Bijan Kian for putative FARA-related criminal charges.

The fact Maddow calls Gülen a “bogeyman” who could not have possibly been involved in the 2016 Turkish Coup all but proves he was behind it.

Excerpts of The Rachel Maddow Show (Dec 17, 2018)

The notion that Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.) would risk his reputation as one of the most highly decorated US Army Intel Officers ever, built during his 33-year career, to work illegally as a secret foreign agent of Turkey is patently absurd.

Flynn’s 2016 Op-Ed was outside the scope of the Flynn Intel Group commercial engagement, and in fact published over the objections of Alptekin. The Op-Ed compared the Gülenists unfavorably with the Muslim Brotherhood (with whom the Erdoğan government is associated). Alptekin felt the article “would resonate negatively in Turkey”. Nevertheless, Flynn personally felt he needed to call out the national security threat the Gülenists posed to the United States and decided to publish the Op-Ed over Alptekin’s objections.

It can be reasonably assumed the Gülenists were in full panic mode by the end of Election Night 2016 having been exposed as an radical Islamist cult and seeing their preferred candidate Hillary Clinton defeated.

Excerpt courtesy of Counterbalance with Michael Doran

Fethullah Gülen and his so-called Gülenist Movement have amassed a multi-billion dollar global business empire including interests in multimedia, construction, banking, and trade. But their largest business is a worldwide chain of charter schools. Gülen-inspired schools are the largest charter network in the US with over 160 schools in at least 26 states and on US Air Force bases.

The Gülenists are able to obtain lucrative government contracts to build and maintain the schools. They also use the schools to import Gülen followers from Turkey to work as math, science, and even English teachers by way of H1B visas. Gülen schools are among the nation’s largest users of H1B visas, even more than Google.​

Credible accusations have been made in lawsuits in Ohio, Texas, and elsewhere that teachers brought in from Turkey are forced to kick back up to 40% of their (US taxpayer-funded) salaries to the Gülenist Movement, which is a federal crime.

Excerpts from the 60 Minutes exposé “The Gülen Movement” which originally aired in May 2012

Flynn, Alptekin, and others have referred to Fethullah Gülen and his followers such as NBA player Enes Kanter as a “Radical Islamist Cult”. I would personally emphasize “Cult” over “Islamist” as some of Gülen’s underground sermons and teachings are bizarre and seem to depart significantly from the teachings of mainstream Islam. For example, Gülenists are known to eat scraps of leftover food off the plate of Fethullah Gülen as if he’s a divine figure. That is behavior much more reminiscent of groups like David Koresh’s Branch Davidians or Bhagwan Rajneesh’s Rajneesh Movement, but in stark contrast to anything taught in either conservative or mainstream Islam.

NBA player Enes Canter. A devout follower of Fethullah Gülen who claims to have been with Gülen the night of the July 16th, 2016 Turkish Coup … just happened to be there I’m sure

You may be asking yourself, “How can all this be true?”. If true, then why the ____ would the US government protect this guy and his followers, and allow them to remain in the US and operate this cabal out of the Pennsylvania Poconos Mountains?

There are really two reasons.

First as mentioned at the beginning of this article, the Gülenists are a major funding cog in the Clinton Machine donating heavily to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Clinton Foundation as well to many people close to the Clintons and other Establishment figures.

Just the US charter schools alone are receiving the average of $750 million in US taxpayer funding each year, and that doesn’t include all their other worldwide business interests.

Right before he was set-up by the FBI, Gen. Flynn was warning about the danger these schools posed to American national security and that they were being used as a funding mechanism for the Clinton Machine and radical Islamic terrorism. The Trump administration has recently considered cutting off funding for the schools at the urging of advisors close to the President such as Rudi Giuliani, but the funding remains in place due to resistance from elements inside the US State and Education Departments.

Excerpt courtesy of Counterbalance with Michael Doran

The Clintons have a long history of corruption and selling out US interests to enrich themselves. The FBI, DOJ, US Media, and Deep State Establishment, who worked to cover up and obfuscate investigations into the Clinton’s corrupt arrangements, are the exact same actors who set-up and framed Flynn, Alptekin, and the other Mueller Investigation victims.​ Flynn and Alptekin were in their way.

There is little doubt Gülen and the Gülenists rely on the same type of corrupt career bureaucrats inside the US State Department and other federal agencies to both shield “Turkey’s Osama bin Laden” from extradition for his alleged role in the July 2016 coup attempt of a NATO ally, but also to aid in their alleged H1B visa fraud scheme. This despite repeated cables from US embassy officials in Ankara to Washington DC as far back as 2003 warning Gülen could have a “sinister and radical agenda“.

Bill Clinton speaks to Fethullah Gülen supporters

The second reason, the charter schools the Gülenists operate inside the United States are not their only schools. As Alptekin explained in a later interview with Tracy Beanz, there are thousands of Gülenist schools across the globe; many of which are located in regions the CIA has problems penetrating. The CIA for years has been able to use the Gülen schools to plant operatives where they otherwise could not.

When Alptekin asked former CIA Director Jim Woolsey in a meeting with the Flynn Intel Group why the US continues to protect Fethullah Gülen, Woolsey called the Gülenist organization (FETO),

A wet dream for any intelligence organization

Quote by former CIA Director Jim Woolsey as recalled by Elim Alptekin
Alptekin discussing meeting with the Flynn Intel Group and former CIA Director Woolsey on UndercoverDC with Tracy Beanz

Woolsey later went on to make wild-eyed claims that in the same meeting, Flynn and representatives from Turkey had discussed a plot to kidnap Fethullah Gülen from his fortified compound in Pennsylvania and presumably attempt to smuggle him out of the country to be extradited back to Turkey to stand trial.

March 2017 CNN segment of former CIA Director Jim Woolsey describing his version of a meeting Flynn and representatives from Turkey to discuss a plot to kidnap Fethullah Gülen

What’s so odd is the FBI never seemed to bother to interview the former head of the CIA who claimed to be an eyewitness to such a brazen kidnapping plot. They simply relied on media interviews he had done instead as a predicate for their investigation into the Flynn Intel Group. There were no executive privilege hurdles to jump over to question Woolsey; he was a private citizen at the time of the meeting. It would have required minimal effort to arrange an FBI interview with him and he was already speaking publicly about the allegations. So why wasn’t he interviewed?

The documents attached to a recent letter sent by Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson to former Attorney General William Barr mentioned Ekim Alptekin and the alleged scheme to hire Flynn to carry out the kidnapping plot.

Alptekin went on in his interview with Tracy Beanz to discuss Woolsey’s cockamamie version of events and shed some light on the FBI’s failure to interview the former CIA Director.

Alptekin discussing former CIA Director Woolsey’s kidnapping plot allegations on UndercoverDC with Tracy Beanz

The most likely reason the FBI did not bother to interview Woolsey was because his story was so blatantly absurd and easily debunked that they knew he would either have to recant his story or possibly face charges for lying to the federal investigators if he were interviewed. They couldn’t let that happen, because it was part of their reason for going after Alptekin and Flynn.

TWP recently reached out to Alptekin for comment about Woolsey’s kidnapping plot allegations and he responded by saying,

Legal counsel believes that it is likely the FBI knew Woolsey was lying and didn’t want him under oath because the [FBI Form] 302 would become our biggest exculpatory weapon. But if the FBI knew Woolsey was lying then why did they leverage his public statements internally to deepen the investigation? And if the FBI did not know he was lying, why did they not interview him despite the allegations he made?

Ekim Alptekin in response to TWP questions about the Grassley & Johnson letter to AG Barr

The targeting of Gen. Flynn, Alptekin, and Bijan Kian on the manufactured FARA violations was a proverbial “Two Birds with One Stone” tactic. By carrying out a well-coordinated (dis)information campaign to “dirty up” Flynn and Kian as “secret illegal agents of Turkey” and Alptekin as a “Shadowy Turkish Businessman”, the Mueller Team succeeded both in protecting a major Clinton political ally & donor, as well as having another option to investigate and prosecute Flynn; knowing how flimsy their Russian Ambassador – Logan Act case truly was. 

Congressman Devin Nunes discusses the history of the Logan Act with Maria Bartiromo

In President Trump’s Full Pardon of Gen. Michael Flynn, it should be noted Flynn was not only pardoned for the charges of lying to federal investigators in the District of Columbia, but also for,

[A]ny and all possible offenses within the investigatory authority or jurisdiction of the Special Counsel [Robert Mueller] appointed on May 17, 2017 … any grand jury proceedings in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia or the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

From the Full and Unconditional Pardon granted to Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn (Ret.) from President Donald J. Trump on November 25th, 2020

This refers to the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) case that Flynn agreed to testify in as part of his cooperation agreement with the DOJ; part of the Flynn’s plea deal on charges of lying to federal investigators about his Dec. 29, 2016 call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn later withdrew from the cooperation agreement because he refused to lie when pressed to do so.

The judge in the EDVA case against Bijan Kian eventually threw out the case when he made an extraordinary ruling stating,

[T]he Government failed to present substantial evidence for a rational juror to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Rafiekian knowingly participated in a conspiracy.

US District Judge Anthony J. Trenga in his July 2019 ruling setting aside the guilty verdicts in Bijan Kian’s trial

The DOJ inexplicably chose to appeal Trenga’s ruling to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. The hearing of the appeal took place on December 11th, 2020, and has not yet been ruled on.

Flynn attorney Sidney Powell blasted the DOJ decision to press the case as,

[A]wrongful and wasteful use of scarce taxpayer resources

Sidney Powell as quoted in the June 2020 Politico article “Feds Press Criminal Case Against Flynn Partner”
Excerpt courtesy of Counterbalance with Michael Doran

Unlike Flynn, Ekim Alptekin and Bijan Kian are still not out of the woods as far as the EDVA case goes until and unless President Trump chooses to issue full and unconditional pardons for them, too. So the Deep State needs a new way to target General Flynn to get him back under federal indictment in the hopes to gag him again as they’ve been able to do for most of the last four years.

It should be of note, at the time of the contract with the Flynn Intel Group, Ekim Alptekin was the chairman of the Turkey-U.S. Business Council (TAİK) and still sits on their Executive Board. There’s another prominent Turkish citizen the NY Times led hoax seems to be fixated on; Mehmet Yalçındağ, Alptekin’s successor as chairman of TAiK, .

Screenshot from the Sep. 27, 2020 NY Times article The President’s Taxes: Long-Concealed Records Show Trump’s Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance

The articles are smearing Yalçındağ with claims of nefarious acts related to the Trump Tower Istanbul project as well as the Southern District of New York (SDNY) Halkbank case.

In the lead up to the Oct. 29th NY Times article, stories were being planted by Soros funded publications such as OCCRP, which were cited by other articles or re-reported almost verbatim by news outlets such as NBC News attempting to tie Ekim Alptekin to the SDNY Halkbank case

Screenshot from the Sep. 18, 2020 OCCRP article Behind Trump’s Turkish ‘Bromance’: Oligarchs, Crooks, and a Multi-Million-Dollar Lobbying Deal

So the pattern is pretty clear. They have to “dirty up” Alptekin as a “Shadowy Turkish Businessman”, alongside organizations he’s connected to, and (real and/or completely fabricated) associations he has to other individuals also caught up in the hoax. They then use Alptekin to connect Flynn to the “scandal” and use Flynn to help get at President Trump. All in one neat little package with an SDNY bow on top.

One thing that is noticeably absent from President Trump’s full and unconditional pardon of Flynn is any reference to the SDNY, and the Halkbank case is not part of the Mueller Office of Special Counsel Investigation, so Flynn could be prosecuted as part of this case.

Series of tweets including those of Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ)

As shown in TWP’s prior reporting, it is doubtful the federal judiciary will grant Alptekin relief and the DOJ seems unwilling drop the case. As such, President Trump should immediately grant a full and unconditional pardon to Alptekin, his co-defendant Bijan Kian, and all other individuals who are still being persecuted by Mueller Special Counsel prosecutors before he leaves office on January 20th.

Please sign the White House petition to grant K. Ekim Alptekin and Bijan Kian a full and unconditional pardon.

Please follow K. Ekim Alptekin on Twitter and Parler.

For K. Ekim Alptekin’s full story and Legal Defense Fund visit EkimDefenseFund.org.

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