President Obama "I see Turks wherever I go" Gulen Movement Political Lobbying in the USA

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Gulen Politician Bridenstine in ethics probe over free trip to Azerbaijan- blame it on a "friend" Kemal Oksuz

He was invited on all-expenses-paid trip to Azerbaijan by new acquaintance.

TRAVEL EXPENSES

Rep. Jim Bridenstine: In its report on Bridenstine, the Office of Congressional Ethics said, “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.” Bridenstine was cleared by the House Ethics Committee.

LINK HERE 

LINK TO STORY Bridenstine ethics probe Turkish Lobbying

Early this year, Bridenstine, R-Okla., and 10 other U.S. House members found themselves in the midst of an ethics investigation about whether the man, Kemal Oksuz, and some nonprofit Turkish groups in the United States had lied about who paid for the trip to Azerbaijan and neighboring Turkey.

In fact, a shell of a nonprofit organization apparently was set up to funnel money from the national oil company of Azerbaijan, known as SOCAR, to pay for the trip and a convention in the country’s capital, the Office of Congressional Ethics found.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/government/friend-of-a-friend-landed-bridenstine-in-ethics-probe-over/article_16d5c11e-8d52-5b7a-acc4-3b93cfc2be31.html

Magnolia Science Academy - A Gulen Charter School: Gulen California operation Pacifica Institute the ...

Magnolia Science Academy - A Gulen Charter School: Gulen California operation Pacifica Institute the ...: Congressman Mike Honda is among a group of lawmakers who accepted trips from organizations secretly funded by a Turkish religious movement ...

Gulen"Faith Movement" funds 200 trips for lawmakers to Azerbaijan and Turkey

WASHINGTON — A Turkish religious movement has secretly funded as many as 200 trips to Turkey for members of Congress and staff since 2008, apparently repeatedly violating House rules and possibly federal law, a USA TODAY investigation has found.

The group — a worldwide moderate Islamic movement led by a religious scholar named Fethullah Gülen — has been accused by the Turkish government of attempting a coup in that country. Turkish leaders have asked the United States to extradite Gülen from the remote compound in rural Pennsylvania where he has lived for 20 years.

The movement has founded hundreds of charter schools across the United States and around the world, has its own media organizations, and was deeply entrenched with the Turkish regime until a falling out two years ago. That led President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to declare Gülen was running "a parallel state" inside the country with the intent of undermining the government. In advance of Turkish elections this weekend, police raided the offices of Gülen affiliated-media organizations..

A dozen different Gülen groups have sponsored congressional travel since 2008 and have filed forms with the House certifying that they were paying for the trips. The House Ethics Committee approved all the trips in advance based on the forms the Gülen groups submitted.

But a USA TODAY investigation found many of those disclosures were apparently false. Some of the Gülenist groups claimed to be certified nonprofits, but they do not appear in state or IRS databases of approved charities. Groups that did register with he IRS filed tax forms indicating that they did not pay for congressional travel. And five of the groups admitted to congressional investigators earlier this year that a Gülenist group in Turkey was secretly covering the costs of travel inside Turkey for lawmakers and staff.

Congressional disclosures show the Gülen-backed trips totaled more than $800,000 in free travel for lawmakers and staff. That number likely underestimates the costs since many of the in-country expenses were not reported. And it is not at all clear where the $800,000 came from, since many of the groups involved do not appear to have the resources to pay for large delegation trips.

One Gülen group, the Texas-based Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians, sponsored trips for three lawmakers and seven staff members in 2011, filing disclosures claiming it was the sole sponsor of the trips at a total cost of about $54,000. But the same organization filed an IRS tax form that year claiming it spent only $33,000 on travel with no expenditures for the travel of public officials.

The network of Gülen organizations is hard to untangle. The BBC reported in 2013 "the movement's influence extends far beyond Turkey, funding hundreds of Islamic schools, and think tanks and media outlets, from Kenya to Kazakhstan. It has attracted millions of followers and billions of dollars."

Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., took an eight-day trip to Turkey sponsored by a Gulen-connected group. (Photo: Jeff Chiu, AP)

In August 2013, Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., took an eight-day trip to Turkey sponsored by the Pacifica Institute, which claimed on congressional disclosure forms to be an IRS-recognized non-profit covering the $5,700 cost of the trip. But the IRS has no record of Pacifica being a recognized non-profit.

"Congressman Honda quite simply took a trip that was entirely approved by the House," said spokeswoman Lauren Smith.

In April 2011, the same group filed forms with the House Ethics Committee to sponsor two separate trips. In one form, for a trip by then-congressman Bob Filner, D-Calif., Pacifica Institute claimed to be a subsidiary of a group called Global Cultural Connections. In another batch of forms filed for a trip by a handful of congressional staff, Pacifica declared itself to be a part of the West America Turkic Council. Both of those groups are registered with the IRS as non-profits, but neither reported any expenses for lawmaker travel on their 2011 and 2013 tax returns.

USA TODAY

Group linked to ongoing probe paid for House travel this year

 A 2008 cable from the U.S. embassy in Turkey released by Wikileaks describes Pacifica Institute as the "sister organization" of a Turkish-based group called the Bosphorus-Atlantic Association of Cultural Cooperation and Friendship, known by its Turkish initials BAKIAD.he House Office of Congressional Ethics issued a report earlier this month finding that BAKIAD had secretly funded the Turkish leg of a trip to Azerbaijan taken by 10 members of Congress and 32 staff. Four of the Gülen groups sponsoring that trip "used BAKIAD to arrange and finance all in-country expenses for congressional travel in Turkey," OCE found. "Importantly, however, BAKIAD’s role does not appear to have been disclosed to the Committee on Ethics in 2013 or in other years. BAKIAD was established in 2006 to oversee and coordinate trips and events related to North America," and it has sponsored thousands of U.S. travelers ranging from state, local and federal officials to priests, teachers and other community leaders.

"There is a substantial reason to believe that BAKIAD, because of its role as an undisclosed sponsor of congressional travel, provided gifts in the form of impermissible travel expenses to congressional travelers in violation of House rules and regulations," the OCE report concluded.

USA TODAY

Board releases Azerbaijan report that was blocked by House Ethics Committee

In June 2012, a Gülen organization called the Istanbul Center sponsored a nine-day, four-city Turkish visit for Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., his wife, Martha, and four staff members for a total of about $23,000. The disclosure forms submitted to the Ethics Committee said the Istanbul Center is "a unit of the Global Spectrum Foundation." The forms explained that BAKIAD "funds trip and finds sponsors/donors for meals, lodging, domestic travel." But there is no indication who those donors or sponsors were. Istanbul Center is not on file with the IRS as a recognized nonprofit; the tax form filed by Global Spectrum Foundation for 2012 shows no expenses for travel.​

"The Committee on Ethics takes responsibility for trip approvals and we trust it will appropriately handle any issues they find with information reported to them by the trip sponsor," said Brooks spokeswoman Lauren Vandiver. "Congressman Brooks and his staff have no personal knowledge of anything of substance about how the trip was paid for inasmuch as they deferred that issue to the Committee on Ethics for review, research and ‘getting it right’.”

People protest as police search a media group close to U.S.-based moderate Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the government accuses of trying to destabilize it, in Ankara, Turkey, on Sept. 1, 2015. (Photo: Burhan Ozbilici, AP)

USA TODAY made repeated efforts to reach the Gülen organizations mentioned in this article, including dropping by the Washington headquarters shared by several of them.

Only the Istanbul Center responded. Academic Affairs Director Mustafa Sahin said, "I did not organize any trips with members of Congress and staff, and do not really know how financial aspects of such trips were handled." Other staff from that time period are no longer with the organization, he said.

USA TODAY identified 214 congressional trips sponsored by Gülen organizations that appear to be improperly disclosed. The trips generally have similar itineraries, with visits to the same historical sites, and visits primarily with Gülenist journalists, lawmakers and business associations.

And the movement has clearly benefited from making friends in Congress.

In February 2015, Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., organized colleagues to send a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry seeking his help in defending Gülenist journalists who had been arrested by the Turkish government as part of the battle between Gülen and Erdogan.

"We strongly urge you to reach out to President Erdogan and his administration to encourage a peaceful and appropriate resolution to these cases," the lawmakers wrote. Salmon had taken a Gülen-funded trip to Turkey in 2014; Honda, Brooks and five other lawmakers who had taken Gülen-funded trips also signed the letter, as did 23 members who had approved Gülen-backed trips for their staff.Our trip was both fully disclosed and fully vetted by the House Committee on Ethics before the Congressman took it," said Salmon spokesman Tristan Daedalus. "There was widespread coverage in the American press about the Turkish government’s unacceptable actions to silence opposition media," Daedalus said, "and before he went on the trip you mentioned, he had already met with the Turkish embassy to discuss the imprisonment of numerous individuals trying to exercise their right to free speech."

Nobody in Congress is likely to face penalties for accepting improper travel. The Ethics Committee concluded in July after reviewing the 2013 Azerbaijan trip that "all of the Members and staff who went on the trips did so only after getting Committee approval to accept the trips. Neither the Committee nor OCE found any evidence of any knowing violation by any Member or House staffer."

However, "both the Committee and OCE 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 committee therefore announced it was "referring the matter of third parties apparently engaging in a criminal conspiracy to lie to Congress to the Department of Justice for such further action as it deems appropriate."

"It  strains credulity to believe members of Congress and their staff would accept lavish junkets having no idea who actually sponsored the trips," said Anne Weismann, executive director of Campaign for Accountability, an ethics watchdog group  "Even worse, the Ethics Committee is allowing members to hide behind its so-called approval process so they can take exotic vacations paid for by special interests."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/10/29/turkish-faith-movement-secretly-funded-200-trips-lawmakers-and-staff/74535104/

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