House Ethics Committee didn't prosecute politicians, Gulenists Kemal Oksuz Missing

esterday, I reported on the House Ethics Committee's 28-page exoneration of Danny Davis and lots of other representatives in the matter of an illegal junket arranged by former Niagara Foundation Executive Director Kemal Oksuz.

In short, the Committee found no major wrongdoing on the part of the representatives, and it took a ridiculous swing at the Washington Post for leaking information about the investigation. The Committee is not going to do anything else about the scandal, although the report was very clear that laws were probably broken, and that Mr. Oksuz exercised his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to a subpoena.

It looked like a dodge to me. It looked to me like the Committee was looking for a way to avoid looking into the central question of the whole thing: how did Azerbaijan's gas project get a mysterious exemption from the Iran sanctions?

It's a pretty big question, and they took a dive on it.  *[See below for one theory.]

I still don't know why, but I did look into the Committee's membership, and what I found was this: out of the ten members of the Ethics Committee, only five can't be connected to other junkets sponsored by Gulen-linked organizations. 

So, a committee of ten looking into the ethics of a giant Gulen-linked junket to Azerbaijan (and Turkey) has five members who have been on the receiving end of very similar junkets, sponsored by people easily connected to the people at play in the Azerbaijan junket.

Let's look at the Committee: The names highlighted in yellow are people who are somewhat compromised on this topic because they're connected to Gulen-sponsored junkets.

Only one Committee member appears to have recused herself. Yvette Clarke (D-NY) sat out because she herself was on the Azerbaijani junket--- the one being investigated. Good for her.  It was already common knowledge that she was on the trip, but I don't think it's widely understood that her junket-provider was another one of these shell foundations--- not one of the phony-baloney Texas ones that Mr. Oksuz cooked up, and has since lawyered up over. Ms. Clarke got sent by this Council of Turkic American Associations thing out of New York.

Tuck that name away; it comes up later in this post. 

If you're going to follow this story, you just have to accept that there are dozens of these 503 (c)'s around the country; I can't keep up with them. It's all run by a relatively small number of guys; they just keep inventing group names and changing them. That's how they roll. By the way, Mr. Kosar --- the guy sponsoring Ms. Clarke-- is affiliated with at least three Gulen-linked charter schools.  

You also have to accept that none of these Ethics Committee people are willing to acknowledge publicly the long reach of the Gulen Movement in the Azerbaijani scandal, or in their own junketing experiences. They don't mention the name; they don't acknowledge the relationships, the long courtship, the favors, the money. The Gulen Movement is the invisible hand behind the entire scandal; it touches the investigators and the targets.

Interestingly, Patrick Meehan (R-PA), one of the four completely clean members of this Committee, was the US Attorney who argued against Fethullah Gulen's visa in court in 2008. (Fascinating, read it some time. It's pretty blunt.) It doesn't surprise me that he's never been on a Gulen-sponsored junket to Turkey, Azerbaijan, or anywhere else. He can probably smell a rat from pretty far away. 

So, who on the Committee is compromised, to one extent or another? It's mainly the Democrats, as you can see above. It always pains me a bit to go after the political party I usually vote for, but that's just how this has all played out.

Linda Sanchez (D-CA) and her spouse went on Gulen-sponsored junket in 2011, sponsored by the West America Turkic Council, another one of these 503 (c)'s.

There's a name that keeps coming up, that particular fellow. Two charter schools connected to him (Sonoran Science Academy, Tuscon; BayTech, Oakland). He's the guy that can't find qualified math teachers in the US, so he brings people in from.... you guessed it....

I guess it's remotely possible that Ms. Sanchez could fail to connect the dots between her 2011 junket and this 2013 junket, even though her host and the 2013 host are closely connected to each other and politically well connected, I might add.  In all likelihood, though, she probably should have recused herself. She put herself in a position of having to police the friends of friends and people who've given her gifts.  I apologize for this error; it was Ms. Sanchez's sister -- who is also in Congress--- who took this junket. Probably still a hazy area of ethics, but my feeling right now is that it wouldn't call for a recusal. 

 Look, here's her (sister's) host, Ozkur Yildiz, schmoozing with President Obama. Mr. Oksuz might also be in that picture; it's hard to tell. He was at the event.

There is some discussion online about the Mr. Yildiz's changing appearance over time. I'll let you research it; I can't verify any of it, but in chronologically close images he does seem to be one person and then another.

John Larson (D-CT) has not reported a Gulen-sponsored junket for himself, but two of his staff members have been guests of the Gulen Movement. His staffers have received trips from non-Gulenist Turkish organizations as well, so Mr. Larson might have some insights about the different agendas of these trips, but who knows? Interestingly, Mr. Larson's staffer's junkets were paid for by the same group that paid for Yvette Clarke's 2013 junket --- and she recused herself. For example, this one:

Are you following? Rep. Clarke recused herself because she went to Azerbaijan in 2013 during the mega-junket under investigation. Rep. Larson, on the other hand, had staffers going to Turkey earlier in time, paid for by the same dude. It's right there in the gray zone, in terms of ethics, isn't it? He probably should have recused himself. If this thing were a jury, he'd have to declare that relationship.

Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA) also had a staffer go on a Gulen-sponsored junket, in the early days of the Gulen junket program (2008). The itinerary is fascinating; it's a laundry list of Gulenist organizations, as well as Turkish political figures. It shows how closely connected the Gulen Movement was to the Turkish government in 2008. 

This particular junket was sponsored by the Turkish Cultural Center of New York, which we don't hear much about here in the midwest.  They were the group that glommed onto Bill Clinton in 2008.

Mr. Yoncu, the sponsor, can be found in the Gulenist press from time to time. 

This connection to Rep. Capuano is a bit tenuous--- it was long ago; I would be surprised is Representative Capuano's staffer even realized there was a connection. It's fine with me that he didn't recuse himself.

Democrat Ted Deutch appears to be completely untouched by Gulen-linked travel. He's been to Turkey, and so have his staffers, but the travel has not been sponsored by any of the Gulenist organizations.

Of the Republicans on the Committee... only Charlie Dent (from Pennsylvania, oddly) is touched by Gulen-sponsored travel. He appears to have been on the same junket as the Larson staffers in 2011.  So, he probably should have recused himself from the Azerbaijani investigation. Rep. Dent is the chair of the Ethics Committee; he traveled to Turkey in 2011 on the dime of the very same person who sent Rep. Clarke to Azerbaijan in 2013. He definitely should have recused himself, now that I think about it.

The other Republicans on the Committee are apparently clean, in terms of Gulen-sponsored travel. Ms. Brooks is very new to Congress, although the Gulenists are reaching out to her, big time. Here she is with FBI search warrant target Bilal Eksili.  Mr. Gowdy has not reported any Turkish travel, nor has the Texan, Mr. Marchand (he has made a cameo at one of the Gulen-linked charter schools in that dreadful state, or they visited him. I can't tell from the picture.)

I guess I understand why the Committee didn't pursue the big question of the Azerbaijani episode: both the chair and the ranking member have personal exposure, and so do other members. But I think the Republicans might have been asleep at the wheel here.

Given how much the Republicans are moaning and groaning about the possible lifting of the Iran sanctions, they probably could have painted this thing as another example of the Democrats going out of their way to weaken the Iran sanctions before eventually just bargaining them away. But then again, the Republicans have their own exposure with the Ethics Committee chair. I'm glad they didn't go down that road, but they could have.

It may be over, but it still stinks. The event itself was appalling, and the investigation was pretty much a whitewash. If there's any question about the value these junkets have as an investment for the Gulen Movement, there shouldn't be. It's obvious.

*About the Shah Deniz exemption to the Iran sanctions:  Evidently the exemption was sponsored by Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), at least according to this. Meeks was on the junket.Here he is with with Kemal Oksuz, the guy who took the 5th Amendment rather than get into a discussion with the Ethics Committee. So, Meeks possibly did the quid pro quo for the junket, but I'm guessing he wasn't alone. The weirder thing is that the Ethics Committee isn't taking the issue up at all.

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.