WASHINGTON
A report by the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) found that actions by several organizations allegedly linked to U.S.-based Turkish scholar Fetullah Gulen have resulted in potential violations of congressional rules by several lawmakers.
Ten congressmen and 32 staff members traveled to the Azerbaijani capital of Baku in 2013 to attend a convention organized by the Assembly of Friends of Azerbaijan (AFAZ), the Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians (TCAE) and seven other organizations under the umbrella Turkic American Alliance (TAA), a well-known Gulen-linked organization based in the U.S.
An investigation into the trip’s funding by the House Committee on Ethics – not to be confused with the OCE, which unlike the self-policing House Committee, is an independent body and does not have subpoena power -- found that the costs were actually funded by several other organizations including Azerbaijan agencies.
The report said members of Congress might have violated congressional rules for receiving “an impermissible gift of travel proscribed by House rules and regulations, standards of conduct, and federal law” noting however, that they might not have been aware of the involvement of "impermissible" organizers.
U.S. law prohibits American officials from receiving grants and gifts from any foreign government or agency.
House rules allow representatives to receive gifts of up to $50 but one congressman was allegedly given a $10,000 rug.
The House Committee on Ethics said in a statement in July that it conducted an investigation using subpoenas, information request and collecting nearly 200,000 pages of information – including 10,000 pages of supplemental material handed over to the OCE.
"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," according to a statement from the House Committee on Ethics.
The OCE report found that the president of AFAZ and TCAE, based in Washington and Houston, respectively, was actually the same person named Kemal Oksuz who is allegedly linked to the Gulen network, as well as a board member of the Turkic American Alliance.
Oksuz and four lawmakers declined to be interviewed by the committee.
The report also revealed that another allegedly Gulen-linked organization based in Istanbul, the Bosphorus Atlantic Cultural Association of Friendship and Cooperation (BAKIAD), sponsored certain trips to Turkey dating back several years and gave impermissible gifts to congressmen.
BAKIAD's sponsorship for the trips to Ankara and Istanbul were never mentioned in any of the disclosed documents.
The president of another allegedly Gulen-linked organization called the Council of Turkic American Associations (CTAA), Furkan Kosar, told the committee that BAKIAD paid for all expenses, including flight and accommodations for lawmakers and their staff during a trip the council organized.
Travel sponsorship forms signed by Kosar, however, indicated that the Turkey trips would be sponsored by the New York-based CTAA.
Besides CTAA, several other allegedly Gulen-linked organizations, including the West America Turkic Council, Mid-Atlantic Federation of Turkic American Associations and the Turkic American Federation of the Midwest, have organized travel to Turkey for members of Congress, all of which were reportedly funded by BAKIAD.
The Office of Congressional Ethics said it did not know how much money BAKIAD spent on the trips between 2010 and 2015 but the report said the group was reportedly funded through donations by Turkish nationals.
Lawmakers and staff "received gifts in Turkey such as Turquoise earrings, a two-cup tea set, stationery and pen, tickets to the Palace of Ayasofya, a glass gold painted plate", said the report.
The report also revealed that the organizations paid prices to Tursan Travel that were not reflected in documents submitted for the investigation.
A company employee of the company responsible for ticketing, testified before the Office of Congressional Ethics that the head of AFAZ and TCAE Oksuz summoned him to Houston in May 2013 and collected a $500 commission for each economy class ticket and $1,000 for business class tickets.
The violation was not the first by the Gulen-linked organizations based in the U.S.
As the Gulen network fights the government in Ankara, the organizations seems to have lobbied against Turkey via the U.S. Congress by donating to representatives and senators and funding their travels.
The same organizations last year engineered letters to the State Department that were signed by dozens of congressmen in the Senate and House that expressed concerns against Turkey’s actions against the Gulen network in Turkey.
Anadolu Agency's research of congressional records last year found that Gulen-linked individuals and organizations in the U.S. have donated up to $500,000 to several of the letters’ signatories as well as spent as much as $300,000 for trips to Turkey for dozens of other signatories.
A USA Today newspaper article Thursday found that the network funded more than 200 trips to Turkey in recent years for U.S lawmakers.
In addition, many of the organizations footing the bill for the trips do not have records as charity groups with the IRS, the U.S. tax agency.
Furthermore, five of the groups told the IRS that the trips were secretly funded by an organization in Turkey.
The Gulen network was designated by the Turkish National Security Council as a terrorist group in 2014 for attempting to establish what is commonly referred to as a “parallel state” in Turkey.
The Turkish government has expanded an investigation into the global extensions of the network and is preparing evidence to issue a red notice with Interpol for Gulen in order to force the U.S. to extradite the group’s leader who currently resides in Pennsylvania.
