Corrupt Politicians and Tools of the Gulen Movement

Corrupt Politicians and Tools of the Gulen Movement
Disclaimer: if some videos are disabled this is the work of the Gulen censorship which has filed fake copyright infringement complaints to UTUBE.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Gulen Movement does the shit show at the Montana State Capital - education on Islam for Montana





 These Montana legislators no doubt thought they were simply participating in a day celebrating an ethnic group. They have no idea what they’re dealing with. Akyol, as noted below, has praised the jihad flotilla against Israel, on which people were chanting the genocidal jihad chant, “Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad will return.” In 2010, Turkish columnist Burak Bekdil  characterized the “liberal” Akyol as a stealthy pro-Sharia, pro-Erdogan Islamic supremacist who wanted to see the caliphate restored.
Gulen, who has been referred to as the “Turkish Khomeini,” is even worse. See my May 2013 article, “Indoctrinating for Jihad in Charter Schools.” And Middle East Quarterly reports:
Outside Turkey, his movement runs hundreds of secondary schools and dozens of universities in 110 countries worldwide. Gülen’s aim is not altruistic: His followers target youth in the eighth through twelfth grades, mentor and indoctrinate them in the ışıkevi, educate them in the Fethullah schools, and prepare them for future careers in legal, political, and educational professions in order to create the ruling classes of the future Islamist, Turkish state. Taking their orders from Fethullah Gülen, wealthy followers continue to open schools and ışıkevi in what Sabah columnist Emre Aköz called “the education jihad.”[13]
The overt network of schools is only one part of a larger strategy. In a 2006 interview, Veren said, “These schools are like shop windows. Recruitment and Islamization activities are carried out through night classes … Children whom we educated in Turkey are now in the highest positions. There are governors, judges, military officers. There are ministers in the government. They consult Gülen before doing anything.”[14]
The AKP’s controversial education policies, coupled with the Islamist indoctrination in Fethullahist schools, have accelerated the Islamization of Turkish society….The schools of Gülen’s Nur movement in Central Asia have worked to reestablish Islam in a region largely secularized by decades of Soviet control….In 2008, members of the Netherland’s Christian Democrat, Labor, and Conservative parties agreed to cut several million euros in government funding for organizations affiliated with “the Turkish imam Fethullah Gülen” and to thoroughly investigate the activities of the Gülen group after Erik Jan Zürcher, director of the Amsterdam-based International Institute for Social History, and five former Gülen followers who had worked in Gülen’s ışıkevi told Dutch television that the Gülen community was moving step-by-step to topple the secular order.[19] While the organizations in question denied any ties to the Gülen movement, Zürcher said that taqiya, religiously-sanctioned dissimulation, was typical in the movement’s interactions with the West. An unnamed former Gülen follower who also once worked in Gülen schools and ışıkevi reported that Fethullahists called the Dutch “filthy, blasphemous infidels” and that they said “the best Dutchman is one who has converted to Islam. All the Dutch must be made Muslims.”[20] Indeed, of the thousands of Fethullahist schools in more than one hundred countries that allegedly teach moderation, none are located in countries such as Saudi Arabia or Iran that exist under domineering strains of official Islam, and most appear instead geared to radicalize students in secular Muslim and non-Muslim societies.
Here is the Atlas reader’s report on the Montana event:
The event Thursday was hosted by the Western American Turkic Council http://www.watc.org and it was called “Turkish Day.”
Speaker presenting multicultural interfaith dialogue agendaInterestingly enough there were no signs of the Western American Turkic Council, only, as you can see in one of the pictures, the “Anatolian Cultural Centers.” Upon and initial Google search, I could find no such organization.
Anatolica Cultural Centers sign
They were led today by a man named Özgür Yıldız, president of the West America Turkic Council (WATC)  who also gave the presentation in the rotunda. 
During the presentation, the delegation from the WATC and a delegation from Turkey was here to promote new economic opportunities and interfaith and intercultural dialogue. They mentioned in their presentation, that they met with the governor and secretary of state who are interested in furthering cooperation.
BooksThey were giving out books to legislators by various authors that have preached for Sharia law and theocratic rule and demonize the West. All of the following books were laid on the table among tourist books and copies of books that described Turkey’s growing economic relationship with the rest of the world and how important it is to the rest of the region.
Islam Without ExtremesOne book was by Mustafa Akyol who has belittled the Armenian genocide
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/an-open-letter-to-pope-francis.aspx?pageID=449&nID=81052&NewsCatID=411
And writes books trying to synthesize western liberal thinking with Islamic teaching thereby making it more palatable to the West.
Akyol also supported the jihadist flotilla against Israel in 2010
Additionally there were giving out copies of “Essays, Perspectives, Opinions” by M. Fethullah  Gülen, who is a Turkish scholar who now lives in America and has called for the establishment of a theocratic state in Turkey and tries to make orthodox Islam compatible with Western liberalism.
In “Essays, Perspectives, Opinions” he demonizes the Crusades and the Islamophobia of Germany and the EU for why Turkey is not in the EU.
Muslim Citizens of the Globalized WorldThey were also giving out a book of collected essays on the  Gülen Movement called “Muslim Citizens of the Globalized World.” One of which promotes more Turkish immigration to Germany and provides means and ways on using dialogue to keep down racial tensions.
They were also distributing a book on Christian-Islamic relations from the Gülen Movement’s perspective.
Turkey and the Arab SpringAlso available was “Turkey and the Arab Spring” written by Graham E. Fuller, who was a former CIA station chief in Turkey and a member of the RAND Corporation. his book places a lot of emphasis on the Gülen Movement.
Apparently his daughter was married to an uncle of the suspects in the Boston Marathon attacks.
One fella was playing a Turkish flute over the microphone just before the event started that was designed to “set the tone.” It could be heard thought the whole building.
Line of people getting ready to eat before speech.Tim Fox in photoIn a picture of people in line for food, you can see Montana Attorney General Tim Fox. He is standing right in front of the Turkish flag.
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- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/04/turkish-day-at-montana-state-capitol-features-books-by-supporter-of-jihad-flotilla-and-the-turkish-khomeini.html/#sthash.p6HhbrBG.dpuf

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Ten Reps being probed under ethics code for Gulen sponsored junket to Azerbaijan

Maybe we’ve got a gang of simpletons running our government who would never think to ask why somebody is giving them as much as $20,000 worth of free airfare and gifts. Maybe it’s more realistic to conclude that they knew something was expected in return but wanted a luxury vacation and thought they could get away with it.
Either way, the cat is now out of the Congressional bag and ten lawmakers have some serious explaining to do.
An ethics investigation is underway into a 2013 luxury junket in which ten members of Congress were treated to a lavish vacation and gifts by SOCAR, an Azerbaijan state-run oil company. The money, roughly $750,000 was run through non-profits in the United States, allegedly to avoid detection, as reported by the Washington Post.
Allegations include the filing of false statements with Congress by the non-profits, in which they stated that they were the sponsors of the “conference.” Federal law as well as congressional rules prohibit foreign governments from purchasing favorable treatment from American lawmakers.
The famous inept Shiela Jackson Lee
 
It just so happens that SOCAR was seeking an exemption from U.S. Iranian sanctions in order to build a $28 billion gas pipeline project in the Caspian Sea.
Those under investigation and the amounts of airfare received in addition to other gifts are:
  • Rubén Hinojosa (D-TX) Member of Financial Services Committee – $19,961.80
  • Danny K. Davis (D-IL) Member of Ways and Means Committee – $16,972.00
  • Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) Member of Armed Services Committee – $13,997.70
  • Former Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) Member of Foreign Affairs Committee – $13,430.60
  • Ted Poe (R-TX) Member of Foreign Affairs Committee, chairman, subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade – $13,376.60
  • Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) Member of Homeland Security Committee – $13,222.90
  • Yvette D. Clarke (D-NY) Member of Ethics Committee – $7,260.60
  • Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) Member of Budget Committee – $7,050.90
  • Gregory W. Meeks (D-NY) Member of Foreign Affairs Committee – $5,741.60
  • Leonard Lance (R-NJ) Member of Energy and Commerce Committee – $1,884.70
  • Mike Turner (R-OH) Member of Armed Services Committee – Turner attended while under a separate delegation
  
We can understand the Democrats being involved in this. For many it’s all they can do to raise their arms and parrot “hands up don’t shoot.” They truly may not understand that there is no such thing as a free ride, that somebody always fays the fare. Sheila Jackson Lee may have thought SOCAR was an acronym for Slave Owning Caucasians And Racists and assumed that it was merely their white guilt compelling them to pay her what she was, by virtue of her ancestry, rightfully due. SOCAR could have probably gotten away with just a couple of scarves in Lee’s case, but it’s too late now. The inappropriate enticements have been awarded.
It is interesting to note that one Democrat, Rep Yvette Clarke of NY, is herself a member of the House Ethics Committee. Perhaps a reassignment to another committee would place her somewhere where the mission better matches her character.
Ted Poe, as a former chief felony prosecutor in Harris County should have and likely did know better. Perhaps there’s a reasonable explanation and the offenses aren’t as bad as they appear but nobody is going to spend that kind of money and expect nothing in return. If Poe didn’t recognize the problem, perhaps that is because it is just one instance of many, of the nature of purchasing influence in Washington DC.
How was he or anyone to know that this would be the one of many that would happen to gain the public’s eye? The total of $750,000 is much more than the indicated amounts of airfare and trinkets. There must be more accounting to be done and with it, will come more accountability

Digging deeper into the Azerbaijan bribes by the Gulen Movement spotlight on Representative Danny Davis Illinois

The Tribune Misses The Gulen Story, Naturally     From Tim Furman's post

[There's an interesting update to this story at the end of this post.] As predicted, the Trib got the Danny Davis/Gulen Movement story mostly wrong. But at least they covered it. Mind you, I don't care much about what junkets Danny Davis goes on; it really seems to me like he doesn't even do basic research on who's sending him where, and it further seems to me that he probably isn't aware of the relationship between the trip and the loopholing of the Iran sanctions that resulted from it. He's a great guy; he's got impenetrable teflon on these things, and nobody cares. Danny Davis is untouchable, and that's fine with me. It's the Gulen connection that interests me because, well, it's so interesting. Here's the story in a nutshell: This horrific Azerbaijani government, and its energy company, SOCAR, needed some changes made in the US sanctions on Iran in order to keep the gas flowing. What am I talking about? Azerbaijan is sitting on a vast quantity of natural gas. Everyone and his uncle is interested in getting natural gas from Azerbaijan rather than Russia because it throws Russia off balance a little. Still, those sanctions were in place as part of this whole Iranian nuclear negotiation. Suffice it to say that trinkets needed to be distributed to some Danny Davis-types in Congress in order for mysterious, untraceable loopholes to appear in US law. So how did SOCAR achieve that? They called up the Gulen Movement, because everyone in the Caucasus knows that the Gulen Movement has American policymakers on speed dial. There was a time when I thought the Gulen Movement's vast junket-the-policymaker operation existed to prop up the charter schools they run. But now I see it more clearly: the charter schools are the economic engine that props up the influence-seeking racket, which serves the larger purpose: building the power, influence, and political/financial capital of the Gulen Movement in these energy-rich emerging power centers, back closer to home. This whole thing runs on lining the pockets of little men. Let's look at some names. Danny Davis got his trip paid for by one of these groups operating out of 501 Midway Drive in Mt. Prospect. (By my count, there are at least five interrelated entities located there, including Niagara Education Services, Inc. --the parent firm of the Niagara Foundation, the Gulen Movement's public face in Chicago, and one of the two big junket sponsors). Davis's Azerbaijan-junket funder, the recently renamed Turkish American Federation of the Midwest, is run by a guy named Suleyman Turhanogullari. Here's what the Trib reports: Suleyman Turhanogullari, president of the federation, was on the trip, Davis said. Reached by telephone, Turhanogullari asked the Tribune for emailed questions. The questions were emailed, but he did not respond. When you first start attempting to connect the dots, it's easy to get lost in all the different group names. That's by design. These separate junketing groups are all the same thing, with different shell names. [In a tedious but telling sidebar, you will find Mr. Turhanogullari's name listed as one of Joe Moore's contributors in February of 2015. As you know, if you've been paying attention, one of the Gulen-linked charter schools, the Chicago Math and Science Academy, is in Joe Moore's ward, and Joe and his spouse were junketed to Turkey at least once. So that's why Joe's getting $500 from a guy in Mt. Prospect. It's a tip. Those charter schools; they serve a purpose for the Movement, and $500 is the equivalent of nothing to them.] So, Danny Davis got his Baku trip and his Turkish rug, or whatever, paid for by the local Gulenist group, which was only doing what it does best: lining up American policymakers with the most corrupt, repressive people imaginable, who happen to have an unending supply of natural gas. That's not even the interesting part. The story in the Washington Post doesn't even mention the Mt. Prospect groups, but if you watch carefully, you'll see that all of these groups are interconnected: they're all part of one big highly organized operation.The Trib sums it up this way: The Post said the travel expenses for Davis, other members of Congress and several staffers were paid for by the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic. The Post said the oil company allegedly funneled $750,000 through U.S.-based nonprofits to conceal funding for the conference. Its story names other nonprofit groups, but not the Turkish group Davis identified. The Office of Congressional Ethics has examined the trip and written a 70-page report about it, the newspaper said. The new information in the Post's story is that the state energy company basically defrayed the costs incurred by the Gulenist groups who schlepped these incurious Americans over to Baku for the party and baubles. And that payment from Baku probably made the trip illegal. But who were these other nonprofit groups? Well, they're shell foundations set up by someone you should probably know by now: Kemal Oksuz, formerly of Niagara Education Services in-- you guessed it-- Mt. Prospect. He's in Texas now, apparently in charge of setting up fake cultural foundations that are really just travel agencies/party planners for Azerbaijani energy interests. Get this: A month before the conference, the nonprofit AFAZ was set up in Houston, home to some of the world’s largest energy companies. “Evidence revealed that SOCAR founded AFAZ in the month prior to the Convention and transferred $750,000 to an AFAZ bank account prior to the Convention,” the OCE report said. AFAZ was created as an “educational, cultural, business, congressional advocacy and charitable organization” with the mission of building “bridges between the United States and Azerbaijan,” according to the nonprofit’s Web site. The investigators for the Office of Congressional Ethics found that AFAZ and the other Houston-based nonprofit, TCAE, concealed the true source of the funding for travel and other expenses for the U.S. officials. “The OCE found that the disclosed nonprofit sponsors contributed virtually no money towards congressional travel to Azerbaijan and played a very limited role in organizing the Convention,” the report said. On April 16, 2013, Kemal Oksuz, an executive in charge of the nonprofits, wrote to the president of SOCAR, requesting $750,000 to underwrite the conference, according to the report. In return, Oksuz pledged that SOCAR’s “logo will be used on all printed materials, banners and website, and that SOCAR will be recognized as the Main Sponsor of the Convention.” Sketchy dude, no? Let me summarize so far: A bunch of American lawmakers took an illegal trip paid for by a foreign government, which funneled the money through a couple of fake Texas foundations run by the Gulen Movement, particularly a prominent Gulen-linked fellow who used to work at Niagara Education Services, which is the same thing as Niagara foundation in Chicago. These groups have other foundations based in a facility in Mt. Prospect, and from there they run a junket program, including the one that paid for Danny Davis to tag along in Azerbaijan, where he got a rug, and the Azerbaijanis got some changes in American law. Want to see an interesting picture?
I'm sourcing that picture to 2012. Who are those guys? From the left, facing the camera: 1. Rep. Jack Franks (a junketeer) 2. Kemal Oksuz, arranger of fake cultural institutions 3. Asim Mollazade, member of Azerbaijani parliament 4. Mevlut "Hilmi" Cinar, of the Niagara Foundation, junket-provider-in-chief. 5. Mike Madigan, multiple junketeer. Mr. Mollazade visits a lot, representing his young country and putting it in the best light possible. Azerbaijan in reality has a ton of cash and has devolved into a near-totalitarian state: From the NYT "In addition to the dozens of journalists and activists behind bars, many other critics have fled the country or gone into hiding, fearing persecution. The government has shuttered dozens of nongovernmental organizations and media outlets and virtually eliminated all possibilities for independent groups critical of the government to secure foreign financing." [Check out this, from Azerbaijan. It's odd how misery attends these large sporting event everywhere you go. Do what you can to help the imprisoned journalists.] But it's all about the gas, and who better to make introductions to Mike Madigan than the local Gulen guys? It's what they do. They send American policymakers on vacations, they make introductions, and they keep the Azeri gas flowing. They topple militaries. It really doesn't cost much to do these things; hell, the money flowing through the charter schools probably covers it all. If only there was some way to audit those darned things. But that's kooky-talk, I know. Update: Almost certainly as a result of his grooming by the Gulenists, Speaker Madigan in 2013 wrote a strange Happy Birthday message to the Azerbaijani president, who had just won "re-election." Mind you, the Azerbaijani elections are a sad joke; they have nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with propping up what is essentially a dictatorship. I will not waste my time scouring the records for a Happy Birthday message from Speaker Madigan to Khadija Ismayilova, one of many journalists languishing in an Azerbaijani prison. Apparently a whole bunch of Gulen-groomed public officials sent Happy Birthday messages to the dictator. I've asked my research department to figure out who got junketed when. (My pretend research department. I'll do it myself.) So, there you have it. The tedious part of the story is that Danny Davis took an illegal trip and got a rug, which he still hasn't taken out of his basement. The slightly more interesting part is that US laws got mysteriously, profitably tweaked as a result of this trip. That level of corruption seems more like a baseline than an outlier, I regret to say. The truly fascinating part is that the people who arranged it all are all working together, they're deeply entrenched in Illinois politics, and they're connected to this highly secretive transnational social/religious/political movement. On the state level, they've got a boatload of audit-proof public funding through their charter school operations and the revenue opportunities those schools open up. And it's almost taboo to talk about any of these things. It certainly is at the Tribune, as I've discussed and on more than one occasion. The Tribune is so under-the-spell that they can't even see what they're looking at. Or maybe it's just off-limits to ask certain questions. Like I say, it's fascinating. Is there anything else even remotely like this? I can't think of any other lobbying/interest group with a profile or scale similar to the Gulen Movement's. It isn't clear to me that the Baku bacchanalia could play out in the same way as today, given that in 2014 the Azerbaijan government read the tea leaves and decided to take sides in the feud between the autocratic Turkish President Erdogan and the Gulen Movement. Who can really know what's going on over there? (Khadija Ismayilova probably knows, but she's in prison.) But if I had to make a summary evaluation of the strength and health of the Gulen Movement around the world, I would say that while they may be on the ropes back home, they're doing fine here, particularly in Springfield. Update: What I've done here is critique a Chicago Tribune story about a Washington Post story that has a few leak-based updates on Houston Chronicle story from July of 2014. There's even more information over at the CASILIPS site, where they were watching this Baku extravaganza in real time, including some better detail on Kemal Oskuz, and his connections to Niagara and Concept. There is nobody with more comprehensive knowledge of the Gulen Movement than CASILIPS. It also appears to me from that article that the scale of the Baku thing was much larger than what has come out so far. Check it out. All of these guys probably got junketed, and most of the junkets probably got funded by the Azerbaijani government, and all of those trips were probably illegal.
http://www.tbfurman.us/2015/05/the-tribune-misses-gulen-story-naturally.html

another good article
http://turkishinvitations.weebly.com/is-the-turquoise-council-the-paid-lobbying-firm-of-azerbaijans-governm

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Gulen Movement SOCOR Azerbaijan bribes US Politicians for favors, your tax dollars at work

http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/10-members-of-congress-took-trip-secretly-funded-by-foreign-government/2015/05/13/76b55332-f720-11e4-9030-b4732caefe81_story.html

The state-owned oil company of Azerbaijan secretly funded an all-expenses-paid trip to a conference at Baku on the Caspian Sea in 2013 for 10 members of Congress and 32 staff members, according to a confidential ethics report obtained by The Washington Post. Three former top aides to President Obama appeared as speakers at the conference.
Lawmakers and their staff members received hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of travel expenses, silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani rugs valued at $2,500 to $10,000, according to the ethics report. Airfare for the lawmakers and some of their spouses cost $112,899, travel invoices show.
The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic, known as SOCAR, allegedly funneled $750,000 through nonprofit corporations based in the United States to conceal the source of the funding for the conference in the former Soviet nation, according to the 70-page report by the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent investigative arm of the House.
The report reflects the most extensive investigation undertaken by the ethics office, which was created seven years ago in response to a number of scandals on Capitol Hill, including lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s illegal funding of lawmakers’ trips.
The nonprofit corporations allegedly filed false statements with Congress swearing that they were sponsoring the conference. The findings have been referred to the House Committee on Ethics for investigation of possible violations of congressional rules and federal laws that bar foreign governments from trying to influence U.S. policy.
Tom Rust, chief counsel and staff director for the Ethics Committee, declined to comment.
“We don’t comment on investigative matters,” he said.
Kelly Brewington, a spokeswoman for the Office of Congressional Ethics, also declined to comment.
[This article will be updated with additional responses as they are provided to The Post.]
The conference, titled U.S.-Azerbaijan Convention: Vision for the Future, took place on May 28 and 29, 2013. During the previous year, SOCAR and several large energy companies sought exemptions for a $28 billion natural gas pipeline project in the Caspian Sea from U.S. economic sanctions being imposed on Iran.

The congressional investigators could not determine whether lawmakers used their official positions to benefit SOCAR or the pipeline project. They also found no evidence that the lawmakers or their staffers knew that the conference was being funded by a foreign government.
The investigators noted that the lawmakers relied on representations made to them by two Houston-based nonprofit corporations, the Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians (TCAE) and the Assembly of the Friends of Azerbaijan (AFAZ). The lawmakers told investigators that they had obtained approval for the trip from the ethics committee.
The report said members of the House Ethics Committee wrote to the Office of Congressional Ethics requesting a halt to their investigation so that the matter could be taken up by their own committee. OCE officials declined the request. A government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter said OCE feared that the ethics panel, which has a reputation among watchdog groups for shielding lawmakers from embarrassing disclosures. would not take any meaningful action.
The pipeline has long been an important U.S. policy objective because it would bolster European security by offering an alternative to Russian gas.
One of SOCAR’s partners was the National Iranian Oil Company, known as NIOC, a relationship that had threatened to scuttle the deal if sanctions were approved without an exemption for the Shah Deniz Natural Gas Project. SOCAR and NIOC each were partners with 10 percent of the project, while BP and Norwegian-based Statoil each held 25.5 percent. Russian-based Lukoil also had a 10 percent share and Turkish Petroleum Corp. had 9 percent.
Congress had approved two sanctions bills containing passages that exempted the project, which Obama signed into law in August 2012 and January 2013. On June 3, 2013, five days after the Baku conference, Obama signed an executive order assessing economic sanctions against Iran that also exempted the project.



The Post reported about the trip at the time, in an article noting that three former Obama political advisers — Robert Gibbs, Jim Messina and David Plouffe — spoke at the conference, which was attended by current and former members of Congress. Politico also wrote about the trip and the Houston Chronicle reported that SOCAR had been a sponsor of the conference and raised questions about the nonprofits involved. Only one Western news organization covered the event, the Washington Diplomat, a monthly that writes about the diplomatic community in the nation’s capital.
But no information surfaced at the time about the alleged $750,000 payment from SOCAR to the nonprofits. Ethics investigators obtained a wire transfer showing that SOCAR sent the $750,000 to AFAZ. SOCAR’s legal counsel told the investigators that the money was “dues” that were “intended to be used as funding for the Convention.”
The lawmakers who took the trip were Reps. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.), Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), Rubén Hinojosa (D-Tex.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.), Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), Ted Poe (R-Tex.) and then-Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Tex.).
Clarke is a member of the Ethics Committee.
Another lawmaker, Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), attended as part of a separate congressional delegation and his expenses were not paid by the conference, according to the report.



“My official visit was part of my House Armed Services and NATO responsibilities,” Turner told The Post in a statement. “During the visit I met with the President, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Speaker of the Parliament of Azerbaijan and received a classified briefing from U.S. personnel. I was a scheduled speaker at the conference, with former Senator Lugar. The conference did not pay my expenses and I did not receive any gifts.”
Davis told The Post that the Ethics Committee approved the trip, which he took with his wife, and that he didn’t realize it had been fundedby SOCAR. He said he saw the oil company’s logos in Baku, but “to be very honest about it, I didn’t pay them much attention, honestly.”
He also said that during the conference he received one rug, which was delivered to his hotel room and is in storage in his basement in Chicago. He said he is considering donating the rug to a museum or a charity.
Davis also said lawmakers should ask more questions about the source of funding for conferences and congressional travel in the future.
“Some of these things that we take sometimes for granted probably require a bit more investigation or more prudence,” he said. “So maybe we’ll exercise a bit more scrutiny. I will.”
Hinojosa, who attended the conference with his wife, said he was also unaware of SOCAR’s involvement.
“Prior to the trip to Azerbaijan and Turkey, I sought approval from the U.S. House Committee on Ethics to travel,” he said in a statement. “I relied upon this written authorization in deciding to travel overseas. I believed the purpose of the trip was to strengthen U.S.-Turkey and U.S.-Azerbaijani relations. I received souvenirs of what I believed to be of minimal value and in compliance with the House Gift rule.”
The statement added: “My staff and I have fully cooperated with the investigation. Importantly, the report notes that there is no evidence to suggest that Members of Congress who went on the trip knew that impermissible sponsors and organizers may have been involved and that Members relied on the sponsors’ representations in good faith.”
Lance declined to comment, citing the ongoing ethics investigation. A senior staff member who declined to speak publicly said the congressman was unaware that SOCAR had sponsored the event and that he had returned the one rug he received after he returned to Washington. The staff member also said Lance received a pair of earrings and reimbursed the nonprofit group that helped organize the conference $100 immediately upon returning to New Jersey
Trip organized in plain sight
Although lawmakers told investigators that they were unaware that the Azerbaijani government had underwritten the trip through its oil company, investigators noted that SOCAR organized much of the conference in plain sight. The oil company issued invitations, sponsored visa entries for the lawmakers and staff members, and hung banners and placards emblazoned with SOCAR’s logo throughout the conference halls in Baku.
The investigators concluded in their report that “a person’s ignorance of the true source of travel expenses is not an absolute shield from liability for receipt of travel expenses from an improper source.”
Several members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which has oversight of U.S. relations with Iran and the economic sanctions, attended the conference. They included one of the panel’s most influential members, Poe, who chairs its subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade.
The report said Poe was among those who did not fully cooperate with the Office of Congressional Ethics or did not acknowledge receipt of their request for information.
In a statement to The Post, Shaylyn Hynes, Poe’s spokeswoman said, “Congressman Poe did cooperate,” providing investigators with documents and answers to their questions.
“The House Committee on Ethics then requested that the OCE cease its review because it was conducting its own investigation,” Hynes’s statement said. “As a result, we alerted OCE that we were communicating and cooperating directly with the House Committee on Ethics, the official arbiter of House ethics matters.”


 
Hynes’s statement added that the congressman thought the conference was being sponsored by the nonprofits.
“In its report, the OCE clearly states it did not receive any evidence that the Congressman knew that TCAE was not the sole organizer or sponsor of the travel,” Hynes’s statement said. “The OCE further correctly found that “Representative Poe acted in good faith reliance on information received from the purported trip sponsor and approval from the Committee on Ethics.”
According to the report, three other lawmakers who took the trip also declined to cooperate with the ethics office or did not respond: Jackson Lee, a member of the Homeland Security Committee; Lance, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee; and Meeks, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Lance’s staff member said the lawmaker had been ready to cooperate with the Office of Congressional Ethics when he was told by the House Ethics Committee that it would examine the case. Lance is now cooperating with that panel.
Those who went to the conference and cooperated with the investigation said they thought the nonprofit corporations had funded the trip and reported their travel expenses on their disclosure forms. Several said they believed they did not need to disclose the gifts because their value did not exceed the $350 reporting threshold.
Lujan Grisham told ethics investigators that she did not disclose the rugs because she did not think they were particularly valuable. She also thought that they were unattractive.
“It’s not a carpet I would have purchased,” the congresswoman said.
In recent years, as relations between the United States and Iran have deteriorated over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Congress and the Obama administration have stepped up economic sanctions. The government of Azerbaijan, which shares a border with Iran, hired several lobbying firms to build a better relationship with policymakers in Washington.
Considering new sanctions
As Congress weighed a new round of sanctions against Iran in 2012, SOCAR opened an office in Washington, buying a building in Dupont Circle for $12 million. On April 25 and 26, 2012, a conference called U.S.-Azerbaijan Relations: Vision for Future was held at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in downtown Washington.
Among the attendees were Poe, Meeks, and Jackson Lee. Ethics investigators said it appeared that SOCAR was a “major funder” of the conference, citing interviews and photographs published on a Web site for the event that showed banners with SOCAR’s logos inside the hotel.
At the time, Congress was considering the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act. The bill contained a provision that would exempt the gas pipeline project from Iranian sanctions. The provision said that “nothing” in the measure would apply to “the development of natural gas and the construction and operation of a pipeline to transport natural gas from Azerbaijan to Turkey and Europe.”
Three months later, on July 30, 2012, Obama signed an executive order authorizing additional sanctions against Iran and exempting the pipeline. On Aug. 1, Congress approved the sanctions legislation and the exemption. Obama signed it into law nine days later.
Before adjourning for Christmas, Congress approved another sanctions bill called the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act, which was part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013. That bill also contained an exemption for the gas pipeline. On Jan. 2, 2013, Obama signed the legislation into law.
Soon, members of Congress began receiving invitations to attend a springtime conference in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan known for its mix of medieval architecture and gleaming modern buildings along the shores of the Caspian Sea.

Exiled Imam Fethullah Gulen started his schools in Azerbaijan some 25 years ago
it is followers of the Gulen Movement which control, operate and fund SOCOR oil.
Gulen lobbying in the USA via the Charter Schools they operate is very important to the
country of Azerbaijan which doesn't have deep seated roots into the USA lobbying except
for funding as part of AFAZ and other groups they belong to

A month before the conference, the nonprofit AFAZ was set up in Houston, home to some of the world’s largest energy companies. AFAZ was created as an “educational, cultural, business, congressional advocacy and charitable organization” with the mission of building “bridges between the United States and Azerbaijan,” according to the nonprofit’s Web site.
The investigators for the Office of Congressional Ethics found that AFAZ and the other Houston-based nonprofit, TCAE, were used to conceal the true source of the funding for travel and other expenses for the U.S. officials.
“The OCE found that the disclosed nonprofit sponsors contributed virtually no money towards congressional travel to Azerbaijan and played a very limited role in organizing the Convention,” the report said.
On April 16, 2013, Kemal Oksuz, an executive in charge of the nonprofits, wrote to the president of SOCAR, requesting $750,000 to underwrite the conference, according to the report. In return, Oksuz pledged that SOCAR’s “logo will be used on all printed materials, banners and website, and that SOCAR will be recognized as the Main Sponsor of the Convention.”
On May 13, SOCAR transferred $750,000 into the Wells Fargo account of AFAZ, according to the report. Three days later, AFAZ made its first money transfer to pay for the plane tickets for the conference attendees.
“SOCAR and AFAZ provided gifts in the form of impermissible travel expenses to congressional travelers in violation of House rules, regulations and federal law,” the ethics investigators said.
‘Sponsors’ provided no funding
Last summer, the Houston Chronicle published an examination of the Baku conference and interviewed Oksuz. He told the newspaper that he was not required to disclose corporate sponsorships because “those contributions always came after the conventions.”
 
Gulen's American Terrorist Gang, head of education, lobbying, junkets, etc.,
Salim Ucan, Faruk Taban, Bilal Eksili, Kemal Oksuz, Alp Aslandogan
All arrived in the USA under h1-b Visas facilitated by politicians like Shiela Jackson Lee
They are in the USA not as loyal Americans but to serve Gulen's interests and promote Turkish interests only. 

Kemal Oksuz, the King of the Junkets and Gulen Troll

The investigators said five nonprofits affiliated with the Azerbaijani government said they sponsored the conference, filing sworn statements with the Ethics Committee in April and May 2013.
“The five sponsoring organizations contributed no funding for the congressional travel in spite of false affirmations on the forms they submitted to the Committee on Ethics,” the investigators wrote in the report.
SOCAR assembled a list of lawmakers, other U.S. officials and private individuals it wanted to attend the three-day conference. The oil company invited more than 30 people to speak in Baku, according to the report, including Gibbs, Messina and Plouffe. SOCAR also invited Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who had lost his reelection campaign in 2012.
In addition to SOCAR, BP, ConocoPhillips and KBR also helped to underwrite the costs of the conference, estimated at $1.5 million. Those costs included $100,000 for hotel accommodations, $75,000 for food and entertainment, and $1.2 million for travel and other expenses.
Several members of Congress and their staff members also took side trips to Turkey, traveling to Istanbul, Ankara or both, the investigators found. They included Clarke, Lujan Grisham, Hinojosa and Lance.
The Bosphorus Atlantic Cultural Association of Friendship and Cooperation, a Turkish nonprofit organization, covered the expenses, the report said. The lawmakers did not disclose the role of that nonprofit.
“Members of Congress who traveled to Turkey accepted payment of travel expenses from impermissible sources, resulting in an impermissible gift, in violation of House rules and regulations,” the report found.
Investigators also said lawmakers received a number of gifts, including crystal tea sets, briefcases, silk scarves, turquoise earrings, gold-painted plates and Azerbaijani rugs. Some congressional staff members told the investigators they thought that the rugs were worth about $300 — $50 below the reporting threshold — and that they didn’t need to disclose them on their forms filed with the Ethics Committee.
The report said “evidence suggests” that all lawmakers received at least one rug and some got two, one prayer-sized and one area rug. Many staff members also received rugs.
Only one lawmaker, Bridenstine, disclosed the rugs on his financial forms. He had them appraised: the smaller rug at $2,500 and the larger at $3,500. In a July 2013 letter to the Ethics Committee, he said he wanted to donate the larger rug to the House Clerk’s Office.
Kemal Oksuz seen with Nevada Congressman Harry Reid
Kemal Oksuz has only been in the USA 15 years as other members of the Gulen Movement
arrived via H1-b Visas to be teachers at their Gulen operated publicly funded charter schools

From DC, to Texas, to Chicago to Nevada and then to New Mexico, here is Kemal Oksuz R
with members of the NMSU - New Mexico State University signing the paperwork to give
$$$ to NMSU from Azerbaijan for scholarships. 
Bridenstine was the only lawmaker to offer to pay for the rugs out of his own pocket, telling the committee that he would like to purchase the smaller rug “at fair market value.”
But, ultimately, he decided not to keep the rugs.
“Having sought advice from the Committee on Ethics, I determined the best course of action was to return the rugs and I did so,” he said in a statement to The Post. “I also received a porcelain tea set which was valued at $87, well under the Foreign Gifts Disclosure Act rules, and an educational book and four local traditional music CDs.”
Kemal Oksuz at a SOCAR event with Houston mayor Annise Parker
Every one of the logos on this backdrop are Gulen operated organizations. 
 
KEMAL OKSUZ mentioned on Sunlight Foundation which investigations corrupt lobby, trace that
to the school in Louisana raided by the FBI (Kenliworth Math and Science Academy) Kemal Oksuz
had donated $80,000 to the Lousiana RNC the largest amount every to get a bill quashed that
would forbid foreigners from operating Charter Schools.  Maybe Kemal will join the other Gulen Money man Adem Arici in Federal Prison.  shame on you Kemal. 


HERE is a refreshing on Azerbaijan /Gulen Movement trying to spread it's "love" into Hawaii, caught red handed http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/13472/Islamic-Gulen-Cult-Pours-Money-into-Takai-Campaign.aspx