TURKISH OFFICIAL TALKS OF BRIBING HOUSE SPEAKER TO KILL
GENOCIDE BILL
10-08-2005 19:00:00 | USA | Articles and Analyses
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
Vanity Fair is reporting in its September 2005 issue that a
Turkish diplomat spoke about arranging for $500,000 in illegal
payments to House Speaker Dennis Hastert in order to kill a
congressional resolution on the Armenian Genocide, in the fall
of 2000.
Joel Robertz, an F.B.I. special agent in Chicago, had asked
Sibel Edmonds, one of F.B.I's Turkish interpreters, to review
more than 40 recorded conversations of "a senior official" at
the Turkish Consulate in Chicago, as well as members of the
American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American
Associations in Washington, D.C., according to Vanity Fair.
The subject of the wiretapped conversations sounded like
attempts to bribe several members of Congress, both Democrats
and Republicans. "Some of the calls reportedly contained what
sounded like references to large scale drug shipments and other
crimes," the magazine said.
In the wiretaps, the Turkish callers frequently used the
nickname "Denny boy," to refer to the Republican Congressman
from Illinois, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. The Turks
monitored by the F.B.I. said they had "arranged for tens of
thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert's campaign funds in
small checks. Under Federal Election Commission rules, donations
of less than $200 are not required to be itemized in public
filings. Hastert himself was never heard in these
conversations," Vanity Fair's David Rose wrote.
The magazine's examination of Speaker Hastert's federal
filings for the years 1996-2002 showed his campaign committee to
have received close to $500,000 in un-itemized payments - the
second highest amount in such contributions for all Congressmen.
Vanity Fair stated that there was no evidence that such payments
were in fact made by these Turkish subjects. "Nevertheless, a
senior official at the Turkish Consulate [in Chicago] is said to
have claimed in one recording that the price for Hastert to
withdraw the resolution would have been at least $500,000."
David Rose reported that Edmonds told congressional
investigators: "The recordings contained repeated references to
Hastert's flip-flop, in the fall of 2000, over an issue which
remains of intense concern to the Turkish government - the
continuing campaign to have Congress designate the killings of
Armenians in Turkey between 1915 and 1923 a genocide. For many
years attempts had been made to get the House to pass a genocide
resolution, but they never got anywhere until August 2000, when
Hastert, as Speaker, announced that he would give it his backing
and see that it received a full House vote. He had a clear
political reason, as analysts noted at the time: a California
Republican incumbent, locked in a tight congressional race, was
looking to win over his district's large Armenian community.
Thanks to Hastert, the resolution, vehemently opposed by the
Turks, passed the International Relations Committee by a large
majority. Then, on October 19, minutes before the full House
vote, Hastert withdrew it. At the time, he explained his
decision by saying that he had received a letter from President
Clinton arguing that the genocide resolution, if passed, would
harm U.S. interests."
In another wiretapped conversation, "a Turkish official
spoke directly to a U.S. State Department staffer." Vanity Fair
reported. He "suggested that the State Department staffer would
send a representative at an appointed time to the
American-Turkish Council office, at 1111 14th Street NW, where
he would be given $7,000 in cash."
A congressional source told the magazine that Edmonds
testified that "she'd heard mention of exchanges of information,
dead-drops - that kind of thing.... It was mostly money in
exchange for secrets.... Another call allegedly discussed a
payment to a Pentagon official who seemed to be involved in
weapons-procurement negotiations. Yet another implied that
Turkish groups had been installing doctoral students at U.S.
research institutions in order to acquire information about
black market nuclear weapons. In fact, much of what Edmonds
reportedly heard seemed to concern not state espionage but
criminal activity. There was talk, she told investigators, of
laundering the profits of large-scale drug deals and of selling
classified military technologies to the highest bidder."
The main focus of Vanity Fair's expose is the controversial
firing of Sibel Edmonds for complaining to her bosses at the
F.B.I. that she believed one of her Turkish co-workers was
leaking confidential information to the Turkish officials who
were being investigated by the F.B.I. The Bush Administration
has banned Edmonds from talking to anyone about her case and has
prevented her from filing a lawsuit for her mysterious
dismissal.
Besides the bombshell about the Turkish plot to bribe
Hastert in order to prevent the passage of a congressional
resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide, one wonders why
the F.B.I. would wiretap for several years the Turkish Consulate
in Chicago, and even more intriguing, the offices of the
American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish-American
Associations. What did the F.B.I. suspect about these
Turkish-American non-profit groups that merited such intrusive
surveillance?
Even more incredible is the allegation that officials
working at the Pentagon and State Dept. were receiving cash
payments from Turkish sources. Is there a Turkish network that
has bought its way and infiltrated the highest levels of the
U.S. government?
The fact that Edmonds is prevented from talking about her
work and filing a lawsuit could be due to the U.S. government's
intent to file charges against these Turkish entities and its
desire not to have the case jeopardized by Edmonds' actions. It
could also be that Washington is trying to cover-up the
suspected illegal activities of these Turkish groups in order to
protect their co-conspirators at the top echelons of the Bush
Administration.
The ACLU has appealed Edmonds' case to the Supreme Court.
We hope that the highest court of the land would hear her case,
thereby revealing to the American public what the U.S.
government has discovered about the activities of the suspected
Turkish diplomats and Turkish American organizations.