On March 5th, NewsMax correspondent John Gizzi asked Press Secretary Jen Psaki a seemingly innocuous question during the White House Daily Briefing that garnered very little attention.
Although he butchered the pronunciation, the Turkish businessman referenced in the question was Ekim Alptekin. This is the same Turkish businessman who is at the center of the now discredited Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) allegations made against Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn (Ret.) for private contract work related to Turkey.
Along with most everyone else, Psaki appeared not to grasp the implications of the question and the need to “circle back” on it at the time, but TWP will help spell it out for her. The fact that the NewsMax reporter referred to Alptekin as “a family friend of the Biden family” and mentioned “he hosted one of the President’s [Biden] brothers” at his home in Turkey are stunning revelations.
The reporter’s question referenced an article in the English language version (Duvar English) of the Turkish publication Gazete Duvar. The article recounts a recent interview Ekim Alptekin gave in Turkish on YouTube to veteran journalist Cüneyt Özdemir.
In the interview, Alptekin reveals he has a longtime acquaintance with Joe Biden dating back to the early 2000’s. At the time, Alptekin was working for Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA) who was the Ranking Member of the U.S. House Foreign Relations Committee (called the International Relations Committee at the time). Alptekin has discussed his time working as a congressional staffer in prior interviews such as the one he gave to Michael Doran back in May 2020 when he first went public about his targeting by the Mueller Investigation.
In the interview with Özdemir, Alptekin explained he knew Joe Biden through his work in Congress when Biden was the Co-Chair of the counterpart Senate committee.
Cüneyt Özdemir: Mr. Ekim have you met Mr. Biden and the members of the Biden family?
Ekim Alptekin: Yes, I have.
Cüneyt Özdemir: How have you met them?
Ekim Alptekin: My immediate employer was a Democrat while I was working at the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 2002 and 2003. He was sort of the second committee co-chair, what we call the ranking member. Joe Biden was the senate side which is the counterparty. Joe Biden was the head of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, responsible for the Democrats. They used to meet up three or four times a week. We, as their team, used to have a seat at the back in case there’s anything that needed to be discussed relating to our topic. For example, my topic was Turkey and the War in Iraq.
English translation from Ekim Alptekin’s Feb 2021 interview with Cüneyt Özdemir
The relationship however extended far beyond just congressional committee meetings. Alptekin explained the house he was living in while working in Washington D.C. was very close to the train station Senator Joe Biden would arrive at every morning after his daily morning commute from Delaware. Alptekin would often run into Joe Biden at the same Union Station coffee shop and then walk together over to the Capitol.
Ekim Alptekin: Also, Joe Biden used to take the train to the congress each morning, and I used to live right next to the Union Station. My house was literally within walking distance, within some 50 meters of Union Station. I’d get my coffee from Union Station and go to work. We used to run into each other there, he knew of me as a staffer of Rep. Tom Lantos. We walked to the [Capitol] Building together on several occasions. I can’t say that we are close friends but we are acquainted with each other.
English translation from Ekim Alptekin’s Feb 2021 interview with Cüneyt Özdemir
Alptekin then goes on to make a simply shocking admission about the timing of Joe Biden’s brother’s trip to Turkey.
Ekim Alptekin: Later on, when these things happened, they consulted with some mutual friends and decided to better understand what happened. Eventually, his brother [Jim Biden] and wife [Sara Biden] came to Turkey in 2019. I hosted them here in Turkey, arranged various meetings, explained and promoted Turkey. This is how I became acquainted with his family.
Cüneyt Özdemir: I did not understand, did you host the Biden family in Turkey? With whom did you arrange meetings? Did you arrange those meetings for his brother
Ekim Alptekin: Yes, I arranged meetings with business people after being introduced to the family through some mutual friends. They know of my past, that I worked in Congress. They are well aware that the Flynn situation is not what it was made to look like. It was something they were curious about; we’ve discussed it and the process resulted with them coming to Turkey.
English translation from Ekim Alptekin’s Feb 2021 interview with Cüneyt Özdemir
So Joe Biden’s own brother, Jim Biden, reportedly made a trip to Turkey and was hosted by a major target of the U.S. Dept. of Justice (DOJ) Mueller Special Counsel investigation right in the middle of the persecution of Gen. Flynn in 2019. The same Joe Biden that FBI handwritten notes reveal was the originator of the ludicrous “Logan Act” theory used to remove Flynn as Trump’s National Security Advisor in the first place.
Allow us to recap the timeline to understand why the date of the visit is so suspect.
On November 30, 2017, Gen. Flynn entered into an agreement with the DOJ to plead guilty to making false statements to the FBI related to his call with Russian Ambassador Kislyak after being blackmailed by Mueller Investigation prosecutors who threatened to indict his son Mike Flynn Jr. in the FARA case related to Turkey. This includes a cooperation agreement to testify against Ekim Alptekin and Flynn’s business partner, Bijan Kian in that same FARA case.
On Dec. 1st, 2017, Gen. Flynn had his first plea hearing in front of Judge Rudolph Contreras. That plea had to be vacated less than a week later and Contreras was forced to recuse himself when text messages were uncovered showing he had a prior friendly relationship with Peter Strzok, the same FBI agent who took the handwritten notes in the Oval Office where Joe Biden pitched “The Logan Act” strategy.
On Dec. 18th, 2018, Gen. Flynn appears at the now infamous pre-sentencing hearing before Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. The same hearing where Sullivan worked up into a Stage 4 TDS hissy fit from watching Rachel Maddow the evening before, openly and disgracefully questioned prosecutors if they had considered charging Gen. Flynn with “Treason”. A man with an impeccable 33 year career in the United States Army and who has been described as “the top military intelligence officer of his generation”.
TWP has never reported this before, but the source for our story about Sullivan paraphrasing The Rachel Maddow Show told us the information likely came from Gen. Flynn himself. The source is a known associate of Gen. Flynn and was later corroborated by Sidney Powell’s motion to disqualify Sullivan from the Flynn case for blatant bias.
After a break for lunch, Sullivan was able to recompose himself and realizing he had overstepped his bounds, apologized for his comments. Flynn, having watched Maddow’s show the evening before, probably recognized what was happening in real-time. This was probably the moment he realized he was being set up from all sides.
In Spring 2019, Gen. Flynn contacted Sidney Powell who had attended the Dec. 2018 hearing in front of Sullivan and brought her on as co-counsel alongside Covington & Burling LLP (Covington), the law firm that had handled his criminal case until that time. Powell, a former federal prosecutor, was already a well-known whistleblower against corruption in the DOJ and a vocal critic of the government’s handling of the Flynn case.
In June 2019, Flynn fired Covington due to serious issues of ineffective counsel and conflicts of interest related to their preparation of the FARA filings on behalf of the Flynn Intel Group related to their work for Alptekin’s Dutch company INOVO BV. Powell and her team began filing motions for Brady Material the government had failed to produce despite standing court orders and Covington had failed to aggressively pursue.
Later that same month, Flynn’s cooperation agreement with the DOJ began to fall apart when he refused to lie in the upcoming trial of Bijan Kian (“Rafiekian” in court filings). An act that caused DOJ prosecutor Brandon Van Grack to fly “into a rage”.
The DOJ would later attempt to add Gen. Flynn as a co-defendant in the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) FARA case, but the motion was denied by the trial judge, Anthony Trenga. The trial of Bijan Kian was held the following month. Judge Trenga would end up setting aside the jury verdict in the case and grant a Motion of Acquittal on behalf of Kian stating the government had failed to prove their case, although the DOJ would later appeal the decision.
In Oct 2019 based on newly declassified evidence, Sidney Powell filed a motion to hold DOJ prosecutors in contempt and immediately dismiss all charges against Gen. Flynn.
In Jan. 2020, Gen. Flynn would finally file a motion to withdraw his guilty plea kicking off a nearly year long saga in Judge Sullivan’s courtroom.
When President Trump was eventually forced to end Sullivan’s judicial charade in late Nov. 2020, he would need to include both the charges in the District of Columbia in front of Sullivan and the FARA related charges in the EDVA in Gen. Flynn’s Full Pardon of Innocence.
So right about the time the DOJ’s already flimsy case against Gen. Flynn is imploding, suddenly Joe Biden’s brother makes a trip to Turkey to meet a key figure in the Flynn case; someone they already had an established relationship with? The brother of the guy who came up with the idea to use the Logan Act to target Gen. Flynn in the first place is being hosted in a 5-star Istanbul hotel by his co-defendant?
Despite mentioning that the Bidens were aware of the situation, and that the case was something they were curious about, Alptekin does not go into any more detail about what was discussed related to his legal situation during the trip. He concludes the interview talking about basic details about meeting with Jim and Sara Biden and some of his prior connections in American politics through his business career.
Ekim Alptekin: We did a Bosphorus tour here; I saw that you showed a photo of his brother while doing a boat trip on the screen. They have toured Turkey for three days. There is a perception of me being a close friend of or having special relations with Trump. I’ve actively had similar relationships, especially on the commercial side of the bilateral since (Bill) Clinton. I worked there during the first term of George Bush. George Bush wrote me a letter following my meeting with him, I think you’ve just posted it. I mean, I’m not new to this, there’s a perception of me taking the spotlight with Trump, but this is not right.
English translation from Ekim Alptekin’s Feb 2021 interview with Cüneyt Özdemir
These circumstances render the timing of this trip highly suspect. It is extremely doubtful that Jim Biden happened to pick this time to catch up on old times and drop in for a visit. Perhaps the answer for what was discussed is already spelled out in Lee Smith’s book The Permanent Coup where Ekim Alptekin’s story is told in Chapter 8: The Scope on Pgs. 111-116
He was being pressured on several fronts … They wanted Alptekin to take [Flynn] down.
“I’m ashamed to say I briefly considered it. Because General Flynn had already inexplicably plead guilty that he lied to the FBI”, said Alptekin. “and legal bills were piling up. I couldn’t work or travel, but then I thought about what my father told me.”
[Sevinc Alptekin] “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.”
Excerpts from Lee Smith’s book ‘The Permanent Coup’
It has always been assumed the “several fronts” were the Mueller Special Counsel Office (SCO) or as with Flynn, conflicted defense counsel with existing connections to Mueller SCO prosecutors who had pressured Alptekin to plead to crimes he didn’t commit.
What if the pressure was coming from other fronts too? Could Joe Biden or those representing him been attempting to leverage their past relationship to pressure Alptekin to turn on Flynn and salvage a criminal case against him? After all, Gen. Flynn had just entered into his own plea deal that included a cooperation agreement to testify in the criminal case against Alptekin. Perhaps they felt Alptekin might be ready to fold under the pressure.
If a special Biden quid pro quo was in fact offered, it is apparent Alptekin chose not to take up the offer as the DOJ criminal indictment is still pending against him to this day. That does raise some serious issues though. Gen. Flynn could still potentially have been indicted in the EDVA for the same offenses. The case against Bijan Kian is still inexplicably ongoing due to an absurd ruling by the 4th Circuit Appellate Court.
That means Ekim Alptekin was either a co-defendant and/or a material fact witness in the cases of Gen. Flynn and Bijan Kian when this meeting took place. Joe Biden, Jim Biden, and Jim’s wife Sara were all private citizens at the time and not representatives of the DOJ or United States government. Any attempt to induce or coerce Alptekin to change his testimony, particularly in order to make false statements, could possibly constitute witness tampering, obstruction of justice, or some other criminal act.
For those reasons, Joe Biden needs to be asked 3 simple questions. What was said during this meeting, what did he know, and when did he know it?
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