Questions surround Turkish businessman at center of Flynn controversy

Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s short-lived former national security adviser whose contacts with Russia cost him his job, is embroiled in a fresh controversy after telling the Justice Department that his consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group, was hired by a Turkish businessman to do work that “could be construed to have principally benefitted the Republic of Turkey.”

The retired general’s decision to provide details of the relationship to the department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) stressing that his firm had not received any payment from the government of Turkey was apparently calculated to pre-empt any suggestion of wrongdoing. But it has had the opposite effect. Vice President Mike Pence told Fox News that it was the first he had heard of the former National Security Agency chief’s Turkey ties. “I think it's an affirmation of the president’s decision to ask Gen. Flynn to resign,” he said.

Media coverage of the affair hints at collusion between Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin, his Netherlands-based company Inovo BV and the Turkish government. Some of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party critics charge that the Turkish government, not Alptekin, financed Flynn.

Alptekin’s initial comments via Twitter didn’t help. He said he had not hired Flynn to do any lobbying. But his denials appeared to contradict Flynn Intel Group’s disclosures to the Justice Department. These include a Sept. 19 meeting in New York City arranged by Alptekin between Flynn, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Energy Minister Berat Albayrak, who is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law.