A former director of the Central Intelligence Agency says former Trump adviser Mike Flynn discussed with Turkish officials the possibility of removing from the U.S. the Muslim cleric who allegedly put together last summer’s attempted coup to overthrow Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government, according to a report Friday.
James Woolsey, who served as CIA director in the 1990s under President Bill Clinton, and others briefed on the meeting, told the Wall Street Journal that Flynn met in New York with the Turkish officials in September. At this time Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, had been advising the Trump campaign on national security matters.
He reportedly discussed how Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, could be taken out of the country without going through the U.S. extradition legal process. The hypothetical idea was “a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away,” said Woolsey.
Citing foreign-lobbying documents, the Journal reported that the Turkish officials in attendance included the son-in-law of Erdogan and the country’s foreign minister.
Flynn’s spokesman, Price Floyd, told the Journal that “at no time did Gen. Flynn discuss any illegal actions, nonjudicial physical removal or any other such activities.”
In another statement sent to the Washington Examiner, Floyd said Flynn never discussed the removal of Gulen from the U.S.
“The claim made by Mr. Woolsey that General Flynn, or anyone else in attendance, discussed physical removal of Mr. Gulen from the United States during a meeting with Turkish officials in New York is false,” Floyd said. “No such discussion occurred. Nor did Mr. Woolsey ever inform General Flynn that he had any concerns whatsoever regarding the meeting, either before he chose to attend, or afterwards.”
Flynn was ousted as Trump’s national security adviser earlier this year after it was revealed Flynn misled administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, about sanctions-related communications with a Russian envoy before Trump took office.
Earlier this month documents that were made public showed Flynn was registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent at the time he was named national security adviser. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump might not have known about the filings at the time he named Flynn as his adviser.
