Think President Trump’s scandal in Ukraine is bad? Wait until you see what he’s been up to in Turkey. Much like Ukraine, Trump’s Turkish dealings involve his associates mixing their private business with the affairs of state and allegations that the president sought to meddle in criminal-justice proceedings. So who in Trump’s inner circle has been lobbying for Turkey and what has the president done for them?
Welcome to Rabbit Hole.
Time is a flat circle: Way back in 2016, Mike Flynn wasn’t yet formally Trump’s national security adviser, nor had he been charged for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials. He was, however, just finishing up lobbying for the Turkish government and pressing the U.S. to deport a dissident cleric whom Turkey blamed for a 2016 coup attempt.
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As the Obama administration tried to transition the reins of government to its successors, officials asked Flynn if the Trump team would prefer that the current administration begin arming the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces for an upcoming assault in Syria. The move would’ve allowed the operation to move forward while giving the Trump administration the chance to blame their predecessors for the decision when Turkey invariably complained. Flynn shot down the offer, a move that delayed the collapse of the ISIS caliphate for months.
Even though Flynn was fired just a month into the administration, he wasn’t the only one skeptical of the U.S. backing of Kurdish forces. In a November 2017 phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after U.S. and SDF forces captured Raqqa, Trump said he’d give “clear instructions” to cut off arms to the SDF. The Defense Department didn’t make good on Trump’s pledge, at least not until Trump offered to pull out U.S. forces from Syria and walked away from the SDF.
The odd couple: Trump’s relatively cordial relationship with Erdogan is odd because it’s endured serious tensions between the U.S. and Turkey on issues Trump actually cares about—American hostages and sanctions on Iran.
Pastor problem: One of the issues closest to Trump, which one might expect to provoke his fury, was Turkey’s arrest of Pastor Andrew Brunson. Brunson, an evangelical preacher living in Turkey, was arrested during a countrywide crackdown on dissent—real and imagined—in the wake of a 2016 coup attempt against Erdogan. Turkish officials charged Brunson, a devout Christian, with the bogus charges of belonging to the pro-coup Gulen movement and the Kurdish PKK terrorist group.
Trump has shown a particular passion for weighing in on diplomatic issues involving hostages and became personally involved in the Brunson case with the same gusto he showed trying to free rapper A$AP Rocky from assault charges in Sweden and freeing American citizens held by North Korea.
Adding insult to the issue, Turkey blew up negotiations to release Brunson at the last minute by upping the ante and demanding that the Trump administration drop an investigation into Halkbank, a Turkish bank investigated by the U.S. for alleged violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran. The U.S. balked at the brinkmanship, which delayed the negotiation that ultimately led to Brunson’s eventual release.
Sanctions: Trump didn’t hold the Brunson negotiating tactics against Erdogan. Nor did he hold it against Halkbank, at least not initially.
The Turkish bank had been under investigation by the Justice Department for years for its alleged role in flouting U.S. sanctions on Iran. Erdogan had tried to kill the investigation during the discussions over Brunson, but Bloomberg News reported that the issue came up once again in a call between Trump and the Turkish leader in the spring. Trump reportedly told Erdogan that he’d get Attorney General Bill Barr to handle the issue and Barr then told his Turkish counterpart that he’d talk to prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, where the investigation originated.
The issue might have remained out of the public view but for the fact that prosecutors in New York announced an indictment of the bank on sanctions violations shortly after Trump threatened Turkey over its offensive in northern Syria. The timing of the charges has led to questions over whether Trump officials pressured prosecutors either to stall the case or move it forward.
Rudy Giuliani: Ordinarily, you’d expect Iran sanctions to be a layup issue for Trump. The president has ratcheted up sanctions on the Islamic Republic tighter than any administration under his “maximum pressure” campaign and stocked his Cabinet with some of the most prominent Iran hawks. So why go easy on Halkbank?
Well, it’s not the only Turkish sanctions case he may have tried to interfere with, nor is it the only one connected to Halkbank. And much like with his former national security adviser, Trump’s Turkey policy may have been influenced by an associate with a wealthy Turkish citizen on his payroll.
In 2016, the U.S. charged Iranian-Turkish citizen and gold trader Reza Zarrab with violating sanctions by laundering money for Iran through Halkbank. Zarrab eventually pleaded guilty, but in a bid to head off his imprisonment, he hired Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani reportedly lobbied then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to help him drop the case and pressed Trump himself to intervene in the case as part of a deal he’d run by Erdogan that would involve the release of Zarrab in exchange for Turkey’s acquiescence to a closer U.S. relationship with Kurdish forces fighting ISIS. Trump, according to The Washington Post, pressed Tillerson for help in the scheme, too.
From Ankara to Kyiv: In hindsight, Trump’s involvement in the Zarrab story looks like a dress rehearsal for his Ukraine caper. The allegations are startlingly similar: Trump’s personal attorney sought to mix his private business with American diplomacy by seeking to trade political interference in criminal justice proceedings in exchange for national security favors.
There is one ironic difference between the two scandals, though. President Erdogan had personally tried to pitch the U.S. on a similar attempt to spring Zarrab back in 2016. He and his wife pressed Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, to intervene in the case by firing the prosecutors involved and releasing Zarrab. Where Biden had rebuffed a foreign leader’s attempt to get him to meddle with the rule of law, Trump is reportedly game for it.
