By all accounts, Gary Ackerman was an eccentric congressman.
A Democrat from New York, Ackerman wore a white carnation boutonniere without fail every day. And he retired every night to a houseboat parked on the Potomac and christened the “Unsinkable II” (the “Unsinkable I” unfortunately, sank).
Early reports that Ackerman had signed on with Gotham Government Relations and Communications tended to focus on the yacht and the lapel flowers. Those details obscured the fact that Ackerman, once the second most senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was joining a lobbying shop hired to boost the image of an Islamic cleric the Turkish government hates.
Ackerman “is a household name in the world of policy making and advocacy,” Gotham founding partner Brad Gerstman said in a statement. “He brings to the table a wealth of knowledge in international and domestic affairs.”
That experience will come in handy, no doubt, if Ackerman helps Gotham with a lucrative project. Federal Election Commission disclosures show Gotham has been contracted by the larger international firm Washington Strategy Group to “lobby in favor of the Turkish-American Gulen Movement to elected officials.”
Since last Summer, Gotham has been paid $157,500 for their efforts. Not bad for a firm barely in D.C. business in for a year.
The Gulen movement takes its name from Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, a religious and reclusive 77-year-old exile who lives in a lavish compound located in the Pennsylvania Poconos. From there, Gulen preaches a secular Islam, advises a network of U.S. charter schools, and fights his own extradition to Turkey.
The government of Turkey accuses Gulen of orchestrating a coup attempt that left nearly 350 dead and another 2,000 wounded. Just Friday, Reuters reports, the government ordered the arrest of 154 people with ties to Gulen including navy officers, teachers, and union members.
Gulen denies any involvement in the July 2016 coup attempt. But Turkey doesn’t believe him and allegedly neither did former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn. The Wall Street Journal reported in November that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is currently investigating Flynn over his involvement in a plot to kidnap and transport Gulen to Turkey in exchange for millions of dollars (Flynn denies the accusations).
Plus, charter schools linked to Gulen need government funding to operate. An investigation by The Record found that in 2016 alone those schools received $60 million federal and local taxpayer dollars.
