Head of US House Ethics Committee received money from group linked to Azerbaijan probe

When and how did Kemal Oksuz turn into such a greedy bastard?
He came to the USA full of bright hopes and dreams as a faithful representative of Hizmet.  Only to be involved with Shady Dealings in the Solidarity Construction firm, getting the Harmony School's million dollar construction contracts without ANY construction experience.
Kemal Oksuz then started Hizment NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations aka Non-Profits)
Turquoise council for Ameriasians
Niagara Foundation
Assembly of Friends of Azerbaijan
What happened to this once honest person, how did he become so corrupt with greed?
Here is the YOUNG KEMAL OKSUZ

The House Ethics Committee has dropped its probe into 10 members of Congress who traveled to Baku, Azerbaijan in May 2013 with oil industry money, according to a Friday afternoon press release. The panel passed a trove of documents it collected to the Justice Department for a possible review of actions by parties outside Ethics’ jurisdiction.

But even as the Ethics Committee investigated the matter, its chairman, Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), received political contributions from local individuals linked to the nonprofit network involved in the trips. The donations amounted to $8,000 and were given on a single day.

Earlier, the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) — an independent, nonpartisan body tasked with investigating matters for referral to the Ethics Committee — found “substantial reason to believe” the 10 members of Congress who traveled to Azerbaijan received illegal gifts. The House Ethics Committee on Friday, however, reported that Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.), Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-Texas), Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.) and then-Rep. Steve Stockman, (R-Texas) all acted in “good faith” and didn’t break any rules by attending the lavish Eurasian oil conference.

Instead, the Ethics Committee assigns blame to a “criminal conspiracy” of unnamed third parties in its report.

“Both the Committee and Office of Congressional Ethics found evidence suggesting that a number of parties outside the House may have affirmatively lied to and/or withheld information from both the Committee and the House Members and staff who were invited,” the press release reads. The panel passed nearly 190,000 pages of material related to the probe on to the Justice Department, saying it was “referring the matter of third parties apparently engaging in a criminal conspiracy to lie to Congress” to DOJ “for such further action as it deems appropriate.”

The identity of the third parties remains unclear. But Houston businessman Kemal Oksuz and several others linked to a nationwide Turkic group signed the travel forms for the members of Congress in 2013, affirming that their nonprofit groups were the sole sponsors of the trip. To send a large contingent of House staffers and 10 members cost more than $270,000, according to a Houston Chronicle report on the trip.

But the money actually came from the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, according to a Washington Post account of a leaked OCE report in May.

In the most recent report, released Friday, Oksuz “invoked his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify,” the Ethics Committee wrote, calling him “in many respects the central witness to most of the substantive allegations in question.” Other potential witnesses were beyond the committee’s reach, in Azerbaijan and elsewhere. The Committee, which said the Washington Post story “impeded” its probe, concluded it couldn’t determine conclusively who paid the travel bills and resolved to let the 10 lawmakers in question off the hook.

Oksuz serves a constellation of nonprofit organizations that claim to promote Turkic-American civil life in a number of roles and was president of the two groups that organized the 2013 conference, according to the Houston Chronicle report. That year, he was also a board member for the Turkish American Alliance, an umbrella group for six nonprofit federations that promote the philosophy of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish scholar living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania. Many in that network are avid political givers — Oksuz and his family alone gave $26,200 to four of the ten lawmakers who traveled to Azerbaijan in 2013. Other lawmakers who went on the junket received similar contributions from employees of nonprofits and charter schools in the network.

During his investigation, the chair of the Ethics Committee did, too. Dent received $8,000 from five individuals linked to the nonprofit network on May 1, 2015, campaign finance records and other documents show.

According to FEC records, one donor who gave $1,000 is an imam at the Cosmos Foundation, an organization that once contracted with Oksuz to build its headquarters. Three donors, who together gave Dent $5,000, list the Lehigh Dialogue Center, or LDC, a nonprofit in Pennsylvania, as their employer. One other donor — who gave Dent $2,000 — served as LDC’s treasurer in 2013. The LDC is affiliated with the Turkic American Alliance, which itself paid travel expenses for 11 House staffers to the Baku conference in May 2013.

Gulen is a political opponent of Turkish President Recep Erdogan, who has accused him of treason. Gulen’s Saylorsburg, Pa., address, where he has a 26-acre compound, abuts Dent’s district.

Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C. and an expert in congressional ethics, explained that conflicts of interest are bound to arise at times simply because lawmakers on the Ethics Committee, just like their colleagues who are not on the panel, need to raise funds. Still, she said, the contributions raise flags.

“How someone who is adjudicating something involving these parties accepts contributions from a party that’s involved in this seems totally inappropriate,” McGehee said. “You kind of have all the components you need to create a very glaring conflict here.”

Drew Kent, Dent’s chief of staff, disputed a substantive connection between the donors and the two Houston-based non-profits explicitly named in the Ethics Committee’s probe in an emailed statement.

“The Congressman has a long-standing relationship with the Turkish-American community in his district, has participated in events at the Lehigh Dialogue Center to promote inter-faith understanding and Turkish-American relations,” Kent said.

Kent added, “Any insinuation of impropriety by [Dent] or the local individuals who supported the Congressman is preposterous and not based in truth or fact.”

Representatives for the Turkic American Alliance could not be reached for comment by phone or email.

US House Ethics Committee on Azerbaijan

Gulen Movement linked to US House Ethics probe of lawmakers bribe and trips to Azerbaijan benefiting SOCOR oil

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/05/lawmakers-who-traveled-to-azerbaijan-urged-action-benefiting-state-oil-company-that-funded-trip/

Natural gas wells in Baku, Azerbaijan. (Sergey Ponomarev/AP/dapd)

Several lawmakers caught up in an investigation of their participation in a lavish overseas trip introduced legislation that would benefit the alleged host of their spring 2013 junket – the state-owned Azerbaijani oil company. Additionally, these lawmakers — and others on the trip — have received tens of thousands of dollars in donations from a network of individuals with close ties to two nonprofit organizations to which the oil company allegedly funneled money to pay for the trip.
The official actions of the lawmakers to encourage energy development in the Caspian Sea and the clusters of contributions from people linked to the nonprofits that facilitated the trip have not been previously reported. The trip itself has been scrutinized by the Office of Congressional Ethics, which found that the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to the two nonprofits to pay for the 10 lawmakers to attend a conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, at which the development of natural gas pipelines through the Caucasus region and Turkey were discussed, according to the Washington Post. Earlier reports on the trip said it was paid for by two Texas nonprofits closely affiliated with followers of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, the Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians and the Assembly of the Friends of Azerbaijan (AFAZ).
A representative of SOCAR confirmed to OpenSecrets Blog that his company provided the money to AFAZ. According to a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing from 2014, AFAZ was working on behalf of SOCAR. Travel disclosures by the lawmakers who went to Baku indicate the travel and other costs were paid by the Turquoise Council or one of several Turkic-American groups with close ties to the Council.

Members of a Congressional delegation to Baku in May 2013, pictured with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev. (AFAZ website).

But the journey was only one of the benefits the lawmakers received from parties involved in planning the event. At least five of the lawmakers who attended the conference received tens of thousands of dollars since 2011 from board members and employees of the two nonprofits as well as individuals affiliated with several other Texas-based organizations linked to Gulen. Two of them sponsored bills that appear to benefit Azerbaijani natural gas interests and efforts to build a pipeline through the region.
The trip to Baku was not a secret, nor was it on its face unusual. Lawmakers may take trips at others’ expense — as long as those picking up the tab aren’t foreign governments or lobbyists. The House Ethics Committee must approve the trips in advance, and did so in this case. But the nonprofits misrepresented themselves to the Ethics Committee and were actually funded by SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state oil company, according to the Post‘s account of the ethics report. The lawmakers who took the trip – and whose travel costs ran into the tens of thousands of dollars each, including gifts like carpets and tea sets — have denied knowing the true source of the funding.
Rauf Mammedov, SOCAR’s representative in the United States and a board member of AFAZ, told OpenSecrets Blog that it is true that his company funded AFAZ, but insisted it was never a secret.
“SOCAR gave funds to AFAZ in 2013 and those funds were intended to help facilitate the conference,” Mammedov said. “In return, AFAZ was to ensure that SOCAR would be publicly and prominently identified as a main sponsor of the conference.” Mammedov also said that SOCAR does no lobbying.
But Chris Rizek, an attorney representing AFAZ, said in a statement that AFAZ did not fund the congressional trips, and on travel disclosure forms it appears the Turquoise Council paid for the lawmakers to go to Baku. Representatives of the Turquoise Council did not respond to multiple requests seeking an interview as to the source of the money.
Most of the members of the congressional delegation, including those whose travel was not covered by the nonprofits, seem to have had a long and friendly relationship with the Gulen movement and those interested in expanding oil and gas interests in the Caspian Sea region. OpenSecrets Blog analyzed donations made by board members of the two foundations, along with any identifiable family members, and directors and employees of several other nonprofit organizations with ties to the Gulen movement, and found hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to Congress and at least $196,000 to the campaigns of five members of the delegation to Baku since 2008.
Taking an interest in Azerbaijan
The development of natural gas fields in the Caspian Sea involves an intersection of Turkish and Azerbaijani interests. While the conference was held in Baku, where SOCAR is based, the gas would have to travel via a pipeline through Turkey in order to make it to markets in Europe or elsewhere. In fact, many members of the congressional delegation traveled on to Turkey after the conference.
The overlap between those involved in the two nonprofits that shuttled members of Congress to Baku and donors to the lawmakers adds a further element of intrigue to the story. Many of the donors, as well as the two nonprofits, appear to be affiliated with the religious and political movement associated with Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish imam who went into self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania in the late 1990s. Gulen, whose followers number in the millions worldwide, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have had an antagonistic relationship, particularly in the wake of a  corruption scandal that has weakened Erdogan’s administration.
Shortly after returning from the conference, which took place on May 28-29, 2013, Rep. James Bridenstine (R-Okla.) sponsored an amendment to the annual defense appropriations bill that would have required the Department of Defense to issue reports on the strategic importance of natural gas interests in the Caspian Sea area and the value of building a pipeline out of the region.
On June 13, a mere two weeks after the conference, his office issued not one, but two press releases proclaiming his support for the amendment.
“Full exploitation of Caspian resources and pipeline diversification could have big implications for both NATO energy security and the political independence of the post-Soviet world,” Bridenstine’s press release claimed.
The amendment — which was included in the final version of the bill passed by the House, but not the version ultimately signed into law — specifically called for the Department of Defense to submit “a detailed report on the implications of new energy resource development and distribution networks, both planned and under construction, in the areas surrounding the Caspian Sea for energy security strategies of the United States and NATO.”
In December 2013, Bridenstine took a flurry of further actions to promote the idea of developing Caspian Sea natural gas interests.
On Dec. 10, he published an op-ed in the Washington Times, in which he railed against Russia and declared that “rather than capitulate to Moscow’s bullying, Baku builds oil and gas pipelines that specifically avoid the trap of crossing into Russian territory.”
“Fortunately, Azerbaijan’s energy boom – a genuine partnership with private enterprise – provides an additional way to ensure energy security,” Bridenstine wrote. “The United States should fully support Azerbaijan’s energy development so that Baku is not forced to choose between integrating with the West or being coerced into Vladimir Putin’s dreams of a new Russian imperium.”
Bridenstine also argued that Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act of 1992 should be repealed. That language bans Azerbaijan from participating in a number of aid and economic programs open to other former Soviet republics. A waiver of the ban has been in place since 2001.

Rep. James Bridenstine (R-Okla.) with Irada Akhoundova, AFAZ board member and president of Houston-Baku Sister City Association. (via HoustonBaku.org)

On Dec. 15, Bridenstine visited the Azerbaijan Center in Houston for an event sponsored by the Houston-Baku Sister City Association — an organization run by Irada Akhoundova, a board member of AFAZ.
On his disclosure forms, Bridenstine valued the Baku trip at more than $14,100. But that’s not all that came his way. In the 2014 election cycle alone, the Oklahoma congressman also received $29,000 from donors in the network associated with AFAZ or the Turquoise Council, an OpenSecrets analysis shows. There were 11 different donors, and all the money came in on three dates: three weeks before the Baku trip, on May 7, 2013; nine days after his op-ed, on Dec. 19, 2013; and Oct. 27, 2014.
Bridenstine’s office said it did not have time to respond to questions on the subject. But others on the Baku trip also tried to bring Congress’s attention to development of natural gas interests in the Caspian Sea after their return.
Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), who attended the conference but, according to his office, was a speaker and did not have his expenses paid by AFAZ or Turquoise Council, has sponsored two House resolutions “[e]xpressing the sense of the House of Representatives with respect to promoting energy security of European allies through opening up the Southern Gas Corridor.” Specifically, the resolutions highlight the value of the pipeline sought by organizers of the Baku conference. The first iteration was sponsored on June 27, 2013, one month after the Baku conference.
Seven of the 10 other members on the Baku trip, including Bridenstine, signed on as cosponsors to the first version, and four of the 10 signed on to the more recent one, which Turner sponsored in March.
According to an OpenSecrets Blog analysis of Turner’s campaign finances, he has received at least $38,200 over his career from donors linked to AFAZ, Turquoise Council or the other Gulen-affiliated groups. Again, many of the donations came on the same date.
For example, on Dec. 20, 2012, several months before the Baku trip, Kemal Oksuz, the chairman of the Turquoise Council and AFAZ donated $2,500 to Turner. The same day, a Houston man named Tarik Celik, the head of a group called the American Turkic Business Council, which uses the same mailing address as the Turquoise Council, also donated $2,500, as did his wife.
Turner’s office refused to answer questions about donations to his campaign.
Odd couple?
Reps. Ted Poe and Sheila Jackson Lee could hardly be more ideologically at odds or represent districts that are more demographically different. Poe is a conservative Republican and a member of the Tea Party Caucus; he represents the northern suburbs of Houston. Jackson Lee is a liberal Democrat elected by the voters of inner city Houston, and in 2010 generated a ruckus by comparing the Tea Party to the Klu Klux Klan at the NAACP annual convention.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev. (AFAZ website)

But they do have some things in common. Both went on the Baku trip as paid guests of the Turquoise Council. And both have received significant campaign money from board members of that group and AFAZ, as well as from board members or employees of a slew of Gulen-linked organizations, mainly in Texas. Those organizations include the Harmony Public School charter school system, a sprawling and fast-growing chain with a heavy emphasis on STEM education, and North American University, a relatively new school in Houston with a similar focus on science. Neither is officially affiliated with Gulen, but followers of the movement fill many of the top leadership roles and a number of those involved with both of the educational institutions have ties to various board members of AFAZ or Turquoise Council.
Since 2011, Jackson Lee has received more than $78,000 from donors identified by OpenSecrets as associated with AFAZ, the Turquoise Council or other nonprofits in the Gulen orbit, and Poe has received $39,200. And in a strange bit of ideological dissonance, a number of these contributors gave to both lawmakers — including the wife of the founder of AFAZ and the Turquoise Council and eight staff members of Harmony Public Schools.
Jackson Lee, the top recipient of money from the donors identified by OpenSecrets, declined to answer any questions about the donations. A spokesperson told OpenSecrets Blog only that her campaign obeys all campaign finance laws.

Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) with the president of Azerbaijan in Baku in May 2013. (AFAZ website)

In total, OpenSecrets Blog found this group of donors has donated more than $482,000 to federal candidates since 2011. While the OpenSecrets Blog analysis focused primarily on donors from Texas to politicians on the May 2013 trip to Baku and those most closely linked to AFAZ and the Turquoise Council, a 2014 investigation published by BuzzFeed found pockets of Gulen donors in New York City as well. While some of those donors overlapped with those identified by OpenSecrets Blog, Buzzfeed found donations from Gulen groups to a sixth member of the May 2013 Baku delegation, Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.).
The Kemal Oksuz nexus
Among the most generous of these donors is Kemal Oksuz, a Houston businessman and the founder of both the Turquoise Council and AFAZ. In 2013, Oksuz was also listed as a board member of the Turkic American Alliance, the nonprofit which claims to bring together the various Turkish American organizations that paid for the travel that was not picked up by the Turquoise Council. Oksuz and his immediate family members have donated more than $103,000 to federal politicians since 2011, according to OpenSecrets.org data.
That includes $26,200 they gave to four members of the Baku delegation, including $5,000 to then Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas), just six days before the event – which Okusz attended as well. They increased their giving to Stockman by another $7,000 later in the summer of 2013.

Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) center, with AFAZ board member Arada Akhoundova in blue and white. AFAZ founder Kemal Oksuz at far right. (HoustonBaku.org)

Oksuz is the former executive director of the Niagara Foundation, a Chicago-based nonprofit that lists Fethullah Gulen as its chairman. Oksuz, who did not return calls or emails seeking comment, was also the co-owner of Target Design Management, a Houston construction firm, which has done work worth tens of millions of dollars for a small, close-knit group of organizations with strong links to the Gulen movement. According to the firm’s website, its current projects include a $13 million contract with Harmony Public Schools and a $59 million contract with North American University. In fact, the ties between Harmony and Oksuz’ firm are so close, and the relationship so lucrative, that the firm attracted national attention soon after it was established.
Okusz appears to have multilayered political connections. Milla Perry Jones, the sister of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, is on the AFAZ board. Perry’s 2012 presidential campaign received at least $25,000 from this network of donors. And Okusz’ social media accounts are littered with photos of him with prominent American politicians — including numerous shots of him in Baku on the 2013 trip, with, among others, Bridenstine and Turner. Oksuz also appears in pictures from the 2013 visit by Bridenstine to the Houston-Baku event.
Oksuz declined to comment. AFAZ’ attorney, Chris Rizek, said in a statement that he “believes the conference served as a forum to advance shared goals and greater understanding between the United States and a key ally in an important region of the world.” He did not respond to questions about whether Oksuz knew of a coordinated effort to raise funds for members of Congress who might help develop gas interests in the region.
In 2010, the Wall Street Journal reported that Fethullah Gulen told followers they may not visit him at his estate in Pennsylvania without first donating to their local member of Congress; Gulen denied saying that.
Ethics Investigation
The question of who really paid for trips remains unanswered, but may not for long.
According to the Houston Chronicle, the House Ethics Committee launched a formal investigation into the matter in March.
Rauf Mammedov, a board member of AFAZ and the representative of SOCAR in the United States, told OpenSecrets Blog that it was no secret that his company funded AFAZ. But he disavowed any knowledge of the details of how the trip was paid for.
“SOCAR gave funds to AFAZ in 2013 and those funds were intended to help facilitate the conference. In return,” Mammedov said, “AFAZ was to ensure that SOCAR would be publicly and prominently identified as a main sponsor of the conference. You’d have to speak with the trip organizers to get more information about how things were paid for.”
Although he’s a board member of AFAZ, Mammedov said his day-to-day interaction with the organization was “nonexistent.”
Mammedov also denied any knowledge of an effort to encourage donors to give to members of Congress.
Rizek, the AFAZ attorney, complained that the report leaked to the Washington Post had made it difficult for the truth to come out.
“The government disregarded due process by leaking a preliminary report to the press outside of congressionally mandated procedures,” he said in a statement to OpenSecrets Blog. “A full and legitimate process would have revealed the preliminary report’s inaccuracies … Contrary to the assertions of the preliminary report and related press stories, for example, AFAZ did not underwrite congressional travel expenses and any donations AFAZ received therefore did not fund congressional travel.”
Rizek did not respond to questions about Oksuz’ other group, the Turquoise Council, which the lawmakers reported as the main underwriter of the trip.

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

Former Gulen "minion" aka member of Gulen Movement (Hizmet) speaks about Gulen blackmail, bribes

Gulen Minion their normal way of doing business is to bribe, blackmail, lie, cajole, play victim, be hospitable, etc., anything it takes to reach their end result which is more share of power for the Gulen Networks.

Gulen's Minions live for 1 thing and that is to serve their evil dictator Gulen.

Former Gulen member speaks out about the bribes and blackmails of the movement

FORMER GULENIST CLAIMS DONATIONS USED FOR BRIBING BUREAUCRATS Daily Sabah Updated : 21.12.2014 17:10:41 Published : 21.12.2014 16:39:17 Former Gulenist claims donations used for bribing bureaucratsISTANBUL — The latest in a series of allegations targeting the Gülen movement has come from former general manager of Gülen movement-affiliated Daily Zaman, Mehmet Arslan, who has recently claimed that some of the donations raised by the movement have been used to buy the patronage of bureaucrats. Adding to the harsh accusations the group has already faced regarding their offenses, Mehmet Arslan, a former Gülenist who parted ways with the movement after being affiliated with them for 25 years, spoke about the accusations of theft against them. Arslan claimed that some of the money being collected from businesspeople, civil servants and others by the movement was being used to buy favors from bureaucrats. According to Arslan, the movement bribes bureaucrats in order to facilitate the activities they want to carry out. Arslan said he had been a committed Gülenist before he decided to part ways with the movement. He said he had witnessed how they invest donations on repurchase, gave salaries to top-level officials and treated them to extravagant presents under the name of establishing schools abroad. "Ten percent of the donations go to Fethullah Gülen" Arslan further claimed. Fethullah Gülen, who resides in the U.S. in self-imposed exile, leads the Gülen Movement, which has charter schools and organizations in hundreds of countries around the world. Arslan, who moved to Uzbekistan after cutting ties with the Gülen movement, decided to return to Turkey to tell everything he knew about them. But this decision had, he said, led him to become a victim of a plot which led to his arrest. Arslan was detained in Uzbekistan for hooliganism and was later jailed on those grounds. He was then charged with not paying taxes. But he claimed that these charges were never documented. The latest charge he faces is being a member of al- Qaeda. Mehmet Arslan's brother, Yakup Arslan, interpreted the whole process as a plot against his brother. "My brother would have returned to Turkey to tell everything he knows about the movement. But he became a victim of a plot. He is now being held under arrest in Uzbekistan," he said. Speaking to Sabah Daily, Arslan also stated that the Gülen Movement attended a gathering chaired by Fethullah Gülen every week. He said he had witnessed many occasions of graft and theft. "After finding out about the corruption they are involved in, I decided to cut ties with the movement and quit my post. Two days after I gave up my duty, a journalist and a renowned politician, along with the leader of the masons, showed up to coax me to stay. It was impossible for me to stay [after I saw the Masons leader with them]." Noting that these are only parts of what he knows, Arslan said he was ready to reveal more about the movement 'for the sake of his country'. The movement, which waged an anti-government campaign in 2013 and is known for conducting operations to discredit and eventually topple the government, was behind a series of scandals involving illegal surveillance by Gülenist police officers and prosecutors. Arslan is not the first who has expressed dissent over Gülen movement's alleged illegal activities. A renowned columnist and former member of the Gülen Movement, Hüseyin Gülerce, also spoke out against the movement after he parted ways from an affiliated daily where he had been working as a journalist. Gülerce described the December 17 and December 25 operations conducted by the movement as an attempt to topple the government. Latif Erdoğan, once a close companion of the Gülen Movement's leader, Fethullah Gülen, also claimed that the group's real purpose behind the operations it conducted against the government was to topple it and replace it with an Islamic state. http://www.dailysabah.com/politics/2014/12/21/former-gulenist-claims-donations-used-for-bribing-bureaucrats Another example of a Gulen minion who donated over $20,000 for "favors"

HOW DOES A SO CALLED SCHOOL EMPLOYEE AFFORD OVER $20,000 IN CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS? Ismayil Ahmadov One reader has supplied this site with the Azerbaijan Connection SOCOR to Montenegro Casinos, Resorts (Bosnia) resorts that the Chicago based Niagara Foundation is working with Corrupt Chicago politicians to lure in wealthy Russians to this new resort and bankrupt Monte Carlo.