Announcement

**Gavur** · 08-10-2005, 09:47 PM

Did Speaker Hastert Accept Turkish Bribes to Deny Armenian Genocide and

Did Speaker Hastert Accept Turkish Bribes to Deny Armenian Genocide and
Approve Weapons Sales?

DemocracyNow.org
Wednesday, August 10th, 2005

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds is accusing the FBI of covering up
improper contacts and financial dealings between certain Turkish
nationals and the office of House Speaker Dennis Hastert. We speak with
Sibel Edmonds and Vanity Fair journalist David Rose. [includes rush
transcript]

Former FBI translator turned whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds is now
appealing her case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In March 2002, she was
fired and she has been fighting now for nearly 3 years to blow the
whistle on US government failures prior to 9-11. She has faced fierce
opposition from the Bush administration, the FBI and some in Congress.
This week, she grabbed headlines again after Vanity Fair published a
major story about her. What is making news from that piece are
allegations surrounding Illinois congressman and Republican Speaker of
the House Dennis Hastert.

Vanity Fair alleges that Hastert may have been the recipient of tens of
thousands of dollars of secret payments from Turkish officials in
exchange for political favors and information. In the article, titled
"An Inconvenient Patriot," Edmonds says that she gave confidential
testimony about the payments to congressional staffers, the Inspector
General and members of the 9/11 Commission. Edmonds says that she heard
of the payments while listening to FBI wiretaps of Turkish officials who
were under surveillance by the FBI.

Sibel Edmonds speaks Farsi, Turkish and Azerbaijani. She was hired after
September eleventh by the FBI to translate pre-9-11 intelligence
gathered by the agency. She has publicly accused the U.S of having
considerable evidence that Al Qaeda was planning to strike the United
States using airplanes as weapons.

Democracy Now contacted Congressman Hastert's office and the Turkish
Embassy for comment. They did not return our phone calls.

* Sibel Edmonds, former FBI translator who was hired shortly after Sept.
11 to translate intelligence gathered over the previous related to the
9/11 attacks. She speaks fluent Farsi, Turkish and Azerbaijani.
* David Rose, investigative journalist and author of "An Inconvenient
Patriot" published in the September issue of Vanity Fair magazine.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: We're joined in our D.C. studio by Sibel Edmonds. We are
also joined on the telephone from Britain by David Rose, an
investigative reporter and author of the Vanity Fair article. David
Rose, let's begin with you. Can you lay out your thesis in this Vanity
Fair piece?

DAVID ROSE: Well, I try to tell the whole story of Sibel Edmonds'
treatment by the FBI and by the Department of Justice from the beginning
until the current time in rather more detail than before, but I suppose
what is the most striking feature is I tried to look at why the
government has invoked the State Secrets privilege in this case. As you
say, just as in the Maher Arar case, the government is saying that her
case against the authorities for having her fired can't proceed because
to let any of the evidence about what lies behind it out in court, even
in a court which has been security cleared where the attorneys have top
secret clearance, would jeopardize the foreign policy and national
security interests of the United States. And, by the way, I think it's
interesting that in his declaration about this, John Ashcroft, the
former Attorney General, uses that formulation: foreign policy and
national security interests.

So, as Ann Beeson, Sibel's attorney from the ACLU, says in the article,
`Well, what could they be trying to hide?' And that's what I set out to
try to find out. And I think there is now considerable evidence that
what they may be trying to hide is not simply a national security
scandal, but something potentially much more explosive and embarrassing,
namely, evidence that some Turksih groups, some of them officials of the
government, some private individuals, perhaps associated or allegedly
associated with organized crime, have been making efforts to corrupt
elected American officials and also appointed government officials in
the United States, and one name that has cropped up in wiretaps, which
my informants tell me Sibel Edmonds translated, is that of the Speaker
of the House, Denny Hastert, as you say.

AMY GOODMAN: Sibel Edmonds, what did you learn about Dennis Hastert when
you were an FBI translator after 9/11, listening to these pre-9/11 wiretaps?

SIBEL EDMONDS: Good morning, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us.

SIBEL EDMONDS: Thank you. Thank you for having me back. Well, as you
know, I'm under several gag orders, and I have been for the past three,
three-and-a-half years. And as far as disclosing information that the
Americans have the right to know, I have already done that. I have done
that repeatedly for the past three years. And I have gone through the
appropriate channels. I have gone to the United States Congress. I have
gone to the 9/11 Commission. I disclosed information in secure
facilities in all of these channels, including the Inspector General's
office for the Department of Justice. And to this date, as you know, we
have an Inspector General's report that has come out and said my
allegations, my report have been supported by other witnesses, by other
documents, by other facts and evidence. Three years ago, you had two
senators coming out saying that the FBI during unclassified briefings
have confirmed all my allegations, and they have denied none. So,
whatever I have reported have already been confirmed.

It's been three years, and the government still insists in invoking the
State Secret privilege. As you know, last year they went ahead and they
gagged the United States Congress, by the way, illegally. And according
to my attorneys, I am the most gagged American in the United States
history, and nobody is asking why. They aren't saying, `Why is it that
the government is going to such length to invoke State Secret privilege,
to gag the Congress, to classify the Inspector General's report, to stop
the 9/11 family members' attorneys to subpoena my deposition?' And the
answer to this question is it's not to protect any national security. It
is not to protect any ongoing investigations, because to this day they
have never used that. Do you know why they have never used the fact
that, oh, maybe this is an ongoing investigation? Because the fact of it
is that's why I blew the whistle. There are no investigations out there.
There is no investigation whatsoever, because they are not targeting the
true criminals. And they are not targeting those who truly masterminded
these terrible acts against the Americans and their best interest, their
national security.

AMY GOODMAN: Sibel Edmonds, we contacted Congress member Hastert's
office, the Speaker of the House, as well as the Turkish embassy, for
comment, they did not return our phone calls. But what are you alleging
about the Speaker of the House?

SIBEL EDMONDS: As I said, Amy, I have been giving all the details to the
appropriate channels. And they have been confirmed. And what I have said
all along is the fact that as far as the 9/11 is concerned, September 11
is concerned, these departments -- and when I say `these departments,'
the Department of Justice, the Department of State, and the Department
of Defense -- have intentionally blocked the investigations of real --
the real criminals in this country. And we are talking about countries
involved. The Vanity Fair article points out to Turkey -- countries. And
it's very interesting. To this date, we are not hearing anything about
targeting, you know, certain Central Asian countries. They are not
speaking about the link between the narcotics and al Qaeda. Yes, we are
hearing about them coming down on some charities as the real funds
behind al Qaeda, but most of al Qaeda's funding is not through these
charity organizations. It's through narcotics. And have you heard
anything to this date, anything about these issues which we have had
information since 1997? And as I would again emphasize, we are talking
about countries. And they are blocking this information, and also the
fact that certain officials in this country are engaged in treason
against the United States and its interests and its national security,
be it the Department of State or certain elected officials.

AMY GOODMAN: Could you name names?

SIBEL EDMONDS: I have named names. I have given it to those people who
are supposed to be representing this country through the Congress. I
have given it to the Inspector General's office, and the report doesn't
name names because everything was classified, but they are saying that
my reports, my allegations, have been confirmed and have been supported
by other witnesses, documents and evidence. I have given it to the 9/11
Commissioners, and interestingly, the 9/11 Commissioners after having
the meetings with me, they went ahead and they had certain meetings and
decided to only refer to I.G. report and ask them to classify the I.G.
report so it wouldn't come out before their report comes out. Now, we
have to ask the questions: Why are they going to this length, to such a
length to cover up and to gag and to classify and to invoke State Secret
privilege? What are they covering up?

AMY GOODMAN: Sibel Edmonds is our guest in Washington, D.C., former
F.B.I. translator challenging her firing from the F.B.I., and on the
line with us, David Rose from Britain, who wrote the Vanity Fair piece
called `An Inconvenient Patriot,' the subtitle `Love of country led
Sibel Edmonds to become a translator for the F.B.I. following 9/11, but
everything changed when she accused a colleague of covering up illicit
activity involving Turkish nationals. Fired after sounding the alarm,
she's now fighting for the ideals that made her an American and
threatening some very powerful people.' David Rose, can you talk about
Sibel Edmonds' colleague within the F.B.I., Melek Can xxxxerson, the
relationship and -

DAVID ROSE: Sorry, I've got a very bad line.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you hear me?

DAVID ROSE: Yes, I can, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you -- yeah --

DAVID ROSE: Hello?

AMY GOODMAN: Hi. Go ahead.

DAVID ROSE: Let me just -- yes. I think there's one very important new
development, which has not been reported, because it took place after
the magazine went to press, which is that in addition to making her
complaints against the F.B.I. and talking about the apparent evidence of
possible espionage, which she had discovered on the part of her
colleague, Melek Can xxxxerson, at the F.B.I., and her husband, an Air
Force major, Douglas xxxxerson. Back in 2002, Sibel Edmonds wrote to the
Office of Special Investigation and the Air Force Inspector General,
which conducted a very brief investigation in the summer of 2002 and in
September 2002, after less than three weeks, without interviewing Sibel
herself, the Air Force Inspector General wrote to Sibel Edmonds and her
then attorneys and said that the case was closed, that they were not
pursuing her allegations against the xxxxersons, which I will go into in
just a moment.

But the new development is that just ten days ago, her attorney in
Washington, Mark Zaid, received a message from the Office of Special
Investigation at the Air Force saying that after this very long gap,
nearly three years, they were reopening the investigation into the
xxxxersons, into Can xxxxerson and her husband, Douglas, and might at
some near future date seek to interview Sibel. Now, it may or may not be
coincidental that, as part of the research for my article for Vanity
Fair, I had submitted about 150 different questions about the entire
case to the Air Force, to other parts of the Pentagon, to the D.O.J. and
the F.B.I., and none of these questions were answered, but they did, of
course, set out in enormous detail the various allegations that are
being raised. Following the receipt of those questions, the
investigation was formally reopened, which is, I think, perhaps significant.

So as to the substance of the allegations, in essence, it's quite
simple. What Sibel Edmonds has alleged and has indeed been alleging now
since the end of 2001, beginning of 2002, is that towards the end of
2001, Can xxxxerson, her fairly new colleague at the F.B.I., and her
husband Douglas, called unexpectedly at the home she shares with her
husband, Matthew, in Alexandria, Virginia. And over tea one Sunday
morning, the xxxxersons suggested that Sibel and her husband might like
to join an organization called the American Turkish Council, which is
essentially a business group which exists to foster trade deals, mainly
of a military nature, between America and Turkey. And they suggested
that - according to Sibel and her husband, they suggested that if they
did this, they might become rich. And Sibel was particularly surprised
at this, because they also boasted that they knew an individual who had
close links with this organization, who was also an official of the
Turkish Embassy, and in fact, although she hadn't said so in her
application to join the F.B.I., Can xxxxerson had at one stage worked
for the American Turkish Council herself as an intern and clearly had
got a close relationship with this particular diplomat.

Well, after that - and this is all set out, by the way, in legal
filings, and much of it is now completely confirmed by the D.O.J.
Inspector General's report into Sibel's case, the unclassified part of
it - following that, Sibel says that Can xxxxerson tried to stop Sibel
listening to wiretap conversations by this particular official, who was
a friend of the xxxxersons and also conversations by others who appeared
to be involved in various illegal activity. So, she went to other
officials at the F.B.I., to a particular agent, Dennis Saccher, who was
in charge of counterintelligence and counterespionage regarding Turkey,
who immediately suspected that this was possibly some kind of
recruitment exercise, that she was being asked to participate in some
kind of illegal espionage operation and perhaps was being offered some
kind of inducement.

It was when she started to complain about this and took her complaints
up the ladder within the F.B.I., and eventually to the Congress, that
she was fired, and that's the substance of the case. But clearly, given
that the D.O.J. Inspector General has now corroborated and supported her
allegations, and has said that many have bases in fact, and that the
F.B.I. fired her as an act of retaliation when it should have
investigated the claims much more seriously, the fact that the Air Force
is now again looking at Major Douglas xxxxerson, Can xxxxerson's
husband, who remains on active duty in Europe, is clearly of some
significance.

AMY GOODMAN: And David Rose, the issue of the Speaker of the House,
Dennis Hastert, and conversations overheard that link his office with
improper dealings with Turkish nationals, can you talk about particular
legislation?

DAVID ROSE: Well, there was - there were two things, I understand, which
those who were wiretapped, whose conversations were recorded and
translated, referred to. One was the controversial deal to sell
helicopters, attack helicopters, to Turkey, which was an issue of great
controversy in the late 1990s. At that point, Turkey was fighting a
pretty hot civil war with the Kurdish separatists in the east of the
country. There were allegations of human rights abuses and so forth, and
some in America thought it was wrong that Turkey should be sold several
billion dollars worth of attack helicopters in those circumstances. So
some of the calls allegedly referred to the hope that the Congress would
approve that very large weapons sale.

But the second occasion or second event which is allegedly referred to
in these wiretaps is the Armenian genocide resolution which came before
the House in 2000. Now, the Armenian lobby has made attempts with some
support -- I mean, Senator Bob Dole was a very great supporter of this
back in the 1980s. The Armenians have tried to get the Congress to pass
a genocide resolution so that - which would basically state that the
mass murder of Armenians in Turkey that was carried out after 1915 was a
genocide, and some countries have indeed passed such resolutions. Some
states have in America. This resolution never really got anywhere until
in 2000, Dennis Hastert, as House Speaker, announced he would support it.

Now, at the time, analysts noted that there was a tight congressional
race in California, in which the Armenian community might just swing it
in favor of the Republican incumbent. But what is significant, the
resolution had passed the Human Rights Subcommittee of the House. It
passed the International Relations Committee, but on the eve of the
House vote, the full House vote, Dennis Hastert withdrew the resolution.
Now, at the time, he explained this by saying that he had had a letter
from President Clinton asking him to withdraw it, because it wouldn't be
in America's interests to have such a resolution, which, of course, was
bitterly resisted inside Turkey, pass through the House.

Well, it is slightly curious when you think about it. I mean, Dennis
Hastert was not known, as one of the authors of Clinton's impeachment,
for deferring to his judgment on many occasions, but on this occasion,
he apparently did. Well, whether or not these allegations have substance
is not something that I am able to state with any knowledge, but it is
said that in the wiretaps that were translated by Sibel Edmonds,
reference was made to this very controversial question of the House
vote. One of the Turkish targets of these wiretaps claimed that the
price for getting Dennis Hastert to withdraw the resolution would be
$500,000. Now, I do emphasize there's no evidence at all that he
received such a payment, but that is what is said to have been recorded
in one of the wiretaps.

AMY GOODMAN: We have to wrap up the discussion. We only have a few
seconds, but Sibel Edmonds, you are taking a challenge to your
dismissal, appealing your dismissal to the Supreme Court?

SIBEL EDMONDS: Yes, Amy. Last week, we filed our petition with the
Supreme Court, and in a few weeks there will be amicus filed in our
support by 9/11 family members and other government watchdog
organizations, and basically this is the last stop. This is the last
channel, because, as you know, we have never been given our day in
court, due to the State Secret privilege and the gag orders. And also I
am pursuing this still with the Congress and I will continue until these
issues come to light and until the Americans know what is going on in
their government.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Sibel Edmonds and David Rose of Vanity Fair - Sibel
Edmonds, former F.B.I. translator, thanks very much for joining us.

**Gavur** · 08-17-2005, 09:05 PM

Edmonds: FBI-ATC scandal "will make the AIPAC case look lame"

Edmonds: FBI-ATC scandal "will make the AIPAC case look lame"

The Weekend Interview Show
August 13, 2005

Interviews - The Scott Horton Show

https://www.weekendinterviewshow.com

Transcribed for ANN/Groong

Scott Horton: Alright, my friends, welcome to the Weekend Interview
Show for August 13th, 2005. I'm your host, Scott Horton. My Web site is
weekendinterviewshow.com, and also I write for antiwar.com. Everything
you are about to hear has been confirmed by the Department of
Justice's Office of the Inspector General. Our first guest today is
the courageous former contract linguist for the FBI, turned would-be
whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds.

And I say "would-be" because the Department of Justice has invoked the
made-up "state-secrets privilege" to prevent her from telling us the
whole truth about what she learned while at the FBI and why the state
is so intent on covering it up. A new article in Vanity Fair, called
"An Inconvenient Patriot," has broken new ground in her story. Welcome
back to the Weekend Interview Show, Sibel.

Sibel Edmonds: Thank you, Scott. Thank you for inviting me back on
your show.

SH: Well, it's very nice to talk with you, always. And it's really
kind of fun to try to question around the state-secrets privilege.

SE: Yeah, we'll try to have fun with that part.

SH: OK. So tell us, first of all--we know that you were a contract
linguist, a translator, for the FBI. Which languages were you a
specialist in?

SE: Sure. Well, first of all, let me tell you that according to the
Department of Justice, all my languages that I speak are considered
top secret, classified, and state-secret case.

SH: Oh.

SE: Which is ridiculous. That means that even my resume would
be considered a top-secret document. And you can go and find it
in all the Web sites that cite my languages. So I speak Turkish,
Farsi--this is the language that is being spoken in Iran, it's a
Persian language--and Azerbaijani.

SH: And for what length of time did you work for the FBI?

SE: I worked for the Bureau for a little bit longer than six
months. Six and a half months.

SH: And that was from, pretty much right after September 11th through--

SE: Three days after September 11 until March 22nd, 2002.

SH: OK. Now, we know already that there were problems with some of
your colleagues in the translation department, which we will discuss
in more detail later. But now, this is a big story, why I brought you
back on the show, is that finally a reporter has come from across
the ocean to dig into this story, and it seems like he's unearthed
quite a bit from others in government who have had a chance to hear
your whole story behind closed doors.

SE: I'm so glad that you pointed out the fact that David Rose came from
England and spent four or five months on this story, while for three,
three and a half years, nobody here, at least from the main press,
has bothered to do so. And David worked diligently on this story,
and he interviewed many officials from the FBI and from the Congress,
and then, basically, put out this story, eleven-page story. I'm very
thankful to David and Vanity Fair for supporting me.

SH: It seems from reading the article that the reason he was so
successful in being able to dig up all these facts is because you
actually have, from the very beginning, gone through all of the proper
channels. You've told your story to all the people who should have
had it told to them, and so basically what David Rose did was just
sort of follow you around and got anonymous leaks from the people that
you actually have been allowed to tell your story to in secret, right?

SE: See, this is why I love interviews with you, Scott, because you
are right on the facts. Right. You're absolutely correct, because I
testified several times before various Representatives, Senators,
in 2002, summer 2002, and gave them my testimony. As you know,
two Senators--Senator Grassley, Republican, and Senator Leahy--they
came out three years ago, more than three years ago, publicly they
said that [the] FBI during their meetings with the Senate confirmed
all my allegations and denied none. And in fact, Senator Grassley
said that she is very credible, because even the FBI management have
corroborated all her stories and all her reports. And he pointed out
the fact that he was going to turn the department upside down and
get to the bottom of this issue. And here today, three years later,
nobody has even touched it.

SH: Alright, hold it right there, Sibel. We'll be right
back, everybody, with Sibel Edmonds on the Weekend Interview
Show. [commercial break] Alright, my friends, welcome back to the
Weekend Interview Show. I'm your host, Scott Horton. My Web site is
weekendinterviewshow.com. We keep all the archives for you there
in MP3 format. I'm talking with Sibel Edmonds. Her Web site is
justacitizen.com, and if you go there, you can sign her petition,
begging the national government to finally lift the gag order and
let this woman tell us the story that she has been trying to tell us
for so many years now. And it's, you know, you do such a good job on
these interviews, it's almost hard to tell that you have a gag order
that forbids you from saying certain things.

SE: Well, yes, because first of all, the gag order that they have
issued--I have several gag orders. In fact, based on the research
that my attorneys at ACLU conducted, I'm the most gagged person in
the United States history, believe me or not, for someone who worked
six months as a language specialist at the FBI.

As you know, they gagged Congress in May 2004, [the] Department of
Justice issued a gag order and ordered the Senators to block everything
from their Web sites and not to comment [on] anything that has to
do with my case. And the Inspector General's report was gagged and
completely classified.

They issued the state-secret privilege for the second time when the
9/11 family members' attorneys subpoenaed my deposition. They came
out and invoked this gag order. So there have been so many gag orders
and some of it so ridiculous that, basically, they're gagging even
my existence.

And as you've just pointed out, I've provided this testimony to
the Congress, to the 9/11 Commission, all tape-recorded, to the
Inspector General's office, the Department of Justice, and if today
you were to call the Congress and ask them, they would say it's under
investigation. Well, it's been for three and a half years. And how can
it be under investigation for three and a half years and all these
gag orders, and we have not gotten to the bottom of this thing. And
if criminals have not been prosecuted in this country.

SH: Sure. And, well, what sort of criminal investigation could we
expect from the FBI on this matter, when they're the ones who are to
be investigated?

SE: That's exactly the problem. You know, if you're in some company,
or in other places, and you come across these criminal activities,
who would you report them [to]? You would report them to the
Department of Justice and the FBI. But what happens when you come
across these criminal activities and find out, through the Department
of Justice and the FBI, and the fact that they are blocking it from
being investigated, then who do you go to? And I have been asking
this question, and that's why I started all these court cases three
years ago, which is being gagged and stopped, and they are fighting
it ferociously, is just so maybe through the court system we can
subpoena witnesses and bring out these documents so I can give it to
the American public and say, "Here are these documents."

SH: Well, you have your three branches of government to choose from.

Obviously, your problem is with the executive branch in the first
place, and now you say that Congress has promised that they were
going to come to bat for you, Senators Grassley and Leahy, and they
never did, and so all you're left now is the courts. Have you had
any success in the courts at all?

SE: No. To this date, they are not even allowing us any hearings. They
go in private, and they have these private, secret conferences with
the judges, and then the judges come out and say, "OK, you cannot have
any hearing." So we filed with the Supreme Court last week, and by
mid-October, we will know whether or not the Supreme Court is going
to accept the case and question the legality of these gag orders,
because it's unconstitutional for the government to come and say,
"We don't even have to present any reason why we are issuing gag
orders, because the reasons themselves are classified." I mean,
this is so Kafkaesque, Scott.

SH: Well, and it's interesting that the state-secrets privilege
actually doesn't exist. There's no law that's ever been passed by
Congress that even says such a thing. Wasn't it the Supreme Court
that made up the state-secrets privilege in the first place?

SE: Yes, it's based on common law, and in fact, most judges, they
don't even know how it is applied. And therefore, that's another
challenge that we are bringing about, for the Supreme Court to look
into this and say, "This is time for us to clarify," you know, "what
the hell is this state-secret privilege." If you were to go and ask
many attorneys in the country, they would tell you, "Hey, I didn't
know that the United States has any Official Secrets Act." And they
get surprised, because even most attorneys don't know that we have
this arcane, draconian common law that is being exercised to gag
people and rid them from their First Amendment rights.

SH: Well, Sibel, let's see if we can figure out why they're going to
such lengths to keep you quiet. Why don't you tell me, what is the
American-Turkish Council, or actually, let me rephrase that. Can you
tell me what the American-Turkish Council is?

SE: Well, sure, it's on their Web site. They are this organization,
lobbying organization, for Turkish business and relationship between
the United States and Turkey. It's exactly like AIPAC.

SH: Oh, good. Oh, exactly like AIPAC?

SE: Exactly. In fact, they have so many crossovers, if you look at
their members, you will basically see many members that basically
are in both organizations. And if you look at the people who are
in the management and that are in charge of this lobbying group,
you come across the same names.

And which is very interesting.

SH: That is very interesting. In fact, my next guest, after you,
will be Bob Dreyfus, about the AIPAC spy scandal. And something
that occurred to me last night, as I read the Vanity Fair piece,
"An Inconvenient Patriot," about you, was that some of the things
in--we'll try to get to this a little bit later--unnamed Department
of Defense and Department of State employees.

Which made me wonder whether perhaps your case is tied in with the
AIPAC spy scandal case in any way.

SE: Absolutely, and I cannot go into any details. And maybe some
other investigative journalist from across the ocean will come here
and do the rest of this article [laughs] as article part two. But
yes, but even the AIPAC spy scandal, as far as I'm reading today,
is just touching the surface of it. It's going to, only to a certain
degree. It doesn't go high enough in terms of what it involves and
how far it goes. And that's as best as I can explain.

SH: OK. Well, thank you very much for that, and we'll see what we
can make of it.

SE: Sure.

SH: Now, can I ask you how you first learned of the American-Turkish
Council?

SE: No, you can't.

SH: That's not classified, is it?

SE: No, you can't.

SH: OK. Well, according to this article--which is written, everybody,
by David Rose, it's in the current issue of Vanity Fair magazine, it's
called "An Inconvenient Patriot," and I'm going to go ahead, because
the state secrets privilege has not been invoked against me so far, I
don't think--and David Rose says in this article [that] he basically
went and talked to the Congressional staffers who have debriefed
you. And what they say is that while you were translating intercepts
for the FBI, you overheard American-Turkish Council employees
discussing criminal activity among both Republicans and Democrats and
even including the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis
Hastert. Can you cough or sneeze or blink twice or anything for me?

SE: All I can tell you is these sources that David Rose interviewed,
I'm sure because the article says they were the people who were present
during the investigation of the Congress and their meetings with the
FBI, so I am sure this was not based on hearsay, that they made these
comments. I'm sure they did it based on the wiretap recordings that
they heard and the documents, so they just didn't come, you know, and
just said "This is what it was" without having all those documents
and files from the FBI to go over. And I guess their statements
were based on the evidence presented to them, both by the Inspector
General's office, Glenn Fine briefed the Congress, because as you
know, the report itself, the IG report, Inspector General's report,
was classified, but they briefed the Congress. So I guess they relied
on the documents from the Inspector General's office and the FBI to
make those statements. I guess that was the case.

SH: Ah, so this doesn't just come from you, but from the official
investigations of your accusations as well.

SE: That's what I would assume because these are Congressional sources
who were in these investigations, and also David Rose, the article,
points out that he spoke with certain FBI officials who were part
of these files and case investigations within the FBI. They would
not make just comments based on, OK, this is what we think it is,
but would provide facts. That's my assumption. Otherwise, Vanity Fair
would not print it.

SH: OK. Now, the article quotes one unnamed official as saying,
"This is the reason why Ashcroft reacted to Sibel in such an extreme
fashion. It was to keep THIS from coming out."

SE: When you say "this," I don't know, I feel that--if you go to my CBS
"60 Minutes" transcript from October 2002, even though they chose to
mostly broadcast the administrative problems and issues, I had one
statement there that said that it involved people, officials, well
recognized names in the Department of State, the Department of Defense,
and certain elected officials. So, I believe the source is also quoted
somewhere else, talking about the fact that in [the] late Nineties they
were going to have [a] special prosecutor to uncover these criminal
activities and corruption, including the politicians. And this isn't
in the article, but later, after the Administration changed, they
decided to cool it and not do anything with it. So they stopped the
investigation and they went against the initial decision of having
special prosecutors trying and basically indicting these criminals in
the Department of State and the Department of Defense and the Congress.

SH: Wow, OK, well, before we get too far ahead of ourselves in, well,
basically what was learned in these wiretaps about Dennis Hastert and
other Republicans and Democrats involved with the American-Turkish
Council, let's go back and discuss as much as you can say, without
going to prison, the role of Melek Can xxxxerson in the intercept
office where you worked at the FBI.

SE: Oh, that information is pretty much public, Scott, because there
have been so many reports on xxxxerson and the fact that even the
Air Force Office of Special Investigation opened this criminal
investigation of Douglas xxxxerson, who had access to nuclear
information--[interrupted by music]

**Gavur** · 08-17-2005, 09:08 PM

Part do

SH: Still there?

SE: Yeah.

SH: Alright.

SE: I thought there was a commercial.

SH: Yeah, well we've got thirty seconds. Let's just go ahead and go
out to break. It's the Weekend Interview Show. We're talking with FBI
translator, whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. Her Web site and petition are
available at justacitizen.com, and we'll be right back. [commercial
break] Everybody, welcome back to the Weekend Interview Show. I'm
Scott Horton. Web site is weekendinterviewshow.com. Also write
for antiwar.com, as does my guest, Sibel Edmonds. Her Web site
is justacitizen.com. And we both encourage all of you to go to
justacitizen.com and sign the petition. What exactly is the petition
for, Sibel?

SE: The petition is demanding open public hearings and an investigation
by the Congress, because, as you know, I have been providing all
this information. All my hearings have been inside this skin, this
secure facility, closed doors, classified, and it's way past time
for the Congress to have open public hearings and let the documents,
let the witnesses, speak for themselves. For three and a half years
I've been trying to get this information out and put it out to the
public domain. For three and a half years they have been trying to
hide, cover, classify, and privilege this information. Obviously,
one of these parties, either my side or that side, would be very
afraid. Obviously, that party's not me, because I've been wanting to
make these documents and this information public, and they have been
relentlessly fighting to keep it under cover by invoking national
security, state-secret privilege, and classification. So, by signing
this petition, we can demand the Congress--not that it's going
to do much good--but we have to try. That's why people talk about
"eternal vigilance."

That's ridiculous. That IS eternal vigilance. We HAVE to be vigilant.

SH: And for all the people out there who are always wondering,
"Yeah, but what can I do?" Well, this is what you can do. This is
one concrete step you can take. Go to justacitizen.com and sign
Sibel's petition. After all, the Congress is, you know--never mind
the judges and the Executive Branch--it's the Congress that are our
representatives. They're supposed to be the oversight and the check
and balance on the executive power. If we don't control the House of
Representatives, we don't control this government at all.

SE: Well said. And as far as xxxxerson goes, I'd like to point out
to one fact that hasn't been, really been, you know, they haven't
been talking about it that much, out there. In September 2002 there
were three investigations, active investigations, on xxxxerson:
one by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, one by [the]
Department of Justice Inspector General's office, and the third
one by the Senate Judiciary Committee. And in September 2002, while
these three active investigations were taking place, [the] xxxxersons
fled the country. They left their house, their car, and they fled
the country. And they were allowed to leave the country. And they
haven't come back. It's been three years, and they haven't come back.

SH: Well, it's even worse than that, right? Because this guy, Douglas
xxxxerson, the husband, he continued to be employed by the US military,
right? Didn't he have a job at NATO, or something?

SE: Correct, and with access, unlimited access, because of his
clearance, to nuclear secrets, nuclear information of the United
States.

SH: Alright, well, let's get back to why that ought to concern
anybody. Who is this guy, Douglas xxxxerson, and what did you ever
have against him?

SE: As far as I know, Douglas xxxxerson was stationed in Turkey
between 1992 and 1997. During those years, he came under certain, some
investigation, and I don't know much about that investigation--that
focused on certain bribery that he accepted, and I don't know by whom,
and I don't have any details on that. And then he came to [the] US,
and he was--even though he had this access and clearance, he was in
touch with certain organizations, and that's plural, again, and some
of these organizations, I would call them "semi-legit." And while his
wife worked for--this article in Vanity Fair says she worked for two
years for [the] American-Turkish Council, but at the same time for
two years, she was also working for this organization called ATA,
American Turkish Association, and again, that information is public.

So, she was working for these two organizations. And ATC has a lot
of front organizations, like through ATA. ATAA has chapters all over
the United States. They have hundreds of chapters. They have it in
various states, and several in Turkic states.

SH: And this woman, Melek Can, when she came and got her job working in
the FBI, it says in this article that on two different official pieces
of paperwork, she neglected to mention the fact that she had worked for
the American-Turkish Council, who, it turns out, were, at least partly,
the target of the intercepts that she was overhearing and reporting on.

SE: Well, I cannot talk about the targets; however, that's
correct. Melek Can xxxxerson, in her application, did not disclose
because in order to get the top-secret clearance, you have to disclose
everywhere you have worked, every organization you have been [a]
member of, and she had left every single one of those empty, blank,
as if she has never worked in her life, she never been [a] member of
any organization. Then, after I reported this issue in January 2002
within the FBI, they opened one investigation. During the questioning,
she was still telling them that, no, she never worked anywhere else,
and this was her first job that she had held, and she had never worked
for any foreign organization or lobby firm, that she had not been
[a] member of any organization. So, yes, that is correct.

SH: Interesting. So here, from--we have this semi-legit organization,
the American-Turkish Council, and this woman who worked for
them for years comes and gets a job at the FBI, helping with the
translation. And now, I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to talk
about this, but the Vanity Fair article goes into pretty astounding
detail as to how this woman--and I think you and I have discussed
this part before--how she said, "You know, what we ought to do,
instead of dividing up the intercepts randomly, I ought to get all
the important ones, and you ought to overhear all the stuff that
doesn't matter." And then, according to this Vanity Fair article,
your common boss, Mike Feghali, took her side.

SE: Correct. There is much more on Mike Feghali, and he himself is or
was under investigation, both by the Inspector General's office and the
Congress, because his case goes even beyond xxxxerson, which is very
interesting. And he's still there, in charge of Arabic translations,
a division of FBI, Washington field office.

SH: Alright, we gotta take another break. We'll be right back,
everybody, with Sibel Edmonds. [commercial break] Alright, my friends,
welcome back to the Weekend Interview Show. I'm Scott Horton, talking
with Sibel Edmonds.

Now, Sibel, you had a different boss at the FBI, I guess, the guy who
was the customer of your information, a guy named David Saccher, right?

SE: Dennis Saccher.

SH: Oh. Dennis. My mistake. Now, who exactly was he? And I guess
in this article it says that he sort of took your side against Mike
Feghali and Melek Can xxxxerson, right?

SE: Well, of course. In the FBI, at least for the language
division, you have two, basically, two supervisors. One would be
the administrative supervisors, who actually have no control over,
or supervision over, your actual work and investigations. They just
take care of your hours and your schedule, etc., which was Mike
Feghali. He was not an agent. Then the agent was in charge of the
main department of language that I was working for, because I did
work for several languages: Farsi, Turkish, and Azerbaijani.

But for the Turkish division it was Dennis Saccher, special agent
Saccher.

SH: OK. Now, he expressed concern to you, according to this article,
that perhaps there was some espionage going on there, on the part of
Melek Can xxxxerson. I'm curious, was that before or after Melek Can
and her husband had come to your house and tried to recruit you and
your husband?

SE: Well, it was around the same time, and in fact, before even I
found out about it, he was reporting it to the FBI headquarters and his
bosses, his supervisors, special agents, about suspicious activities
by xxxxerson in terms of certain wiretap information that were being
blocked and documents that she was forging signatures on and various
other cases that he had come across. And this was even before I was,
I started reporting the issue to the FBI management.

SH: Well, then, when he found out about the new arrangement where
Melek Can xxxxerson was assigned all the important stuff and you
were assigned all the unimportant stuff, he had you go back and
re-translate and take a look at some of the things which she had
marked as "not pertinent," right?

SE: Correct. He asked me and another language specialist to go and,
to go over, all those pieces of communication that were stamped as
"not pertinent to be translated" by xxxxerson. And some of them were
really long conversations. But to go back and translate them and find
out whether or not the information there was pertinent or not.

SH: And did you find that she had mostly been correct in marking
things as "not pertinent"?

SE: No, just the opposite. Just through our first batch, first ten,
twelve communications that communications were blocked, we came across
extremely important, pertinent information that had to do with illegal
activities between certain foreign elements and certain agencies in
the United States.

SH: And when you reported this to your superiors, YOU are the one
who got punished.

SE: Initially, actually, they came and they wanted to give me a
raise and promotion for--in return, they asked me to just leave
it alone and not to report it further up, to the headquarters. And
that's how it worked within the FBI's language division. There was,
there were things like that happening all the time. And after I
insisted that this needed to be investigated, and went higher up,
they started threatening me and retaliating against me. They busted
my home and confiscated my home computer, my husband's home computer,
and they forced me to take a polygraph. And then, later, they fired me.

SH: And also it says in the Vanity Fair article that Melek Can
xxxxerson herself actually threatened you.

SE: Correct. That occurred in January, 2002.

SH: And if I remember correctly, the quote was something to the effect
of, "Why are you doing this? You could be getting your family, back
in Turkey, in danger."

SE: Correct.

SH: And did anything ever come of this threat?

SE: Well, yes, my--I really don't feel like going through that, because
that's really hard for me to speak about, because my family's life
has changed. They've had to come to the US, they've had political
asylum. In fact, the Congress helped them to apply for political
asylum based on documents they received from Turkey that had various
threats in it.

But that is not the point that I really want to make, as far as the
country goes, and that's why I usually tell people I don't think the
issue here is about whistleblowing, being fired, being wrong, that is
not the most important issue here. The most important issue is: what
were these criminal activities? And why, instead of pursuing these,
our government chooses to cover it up and actually issue classification
and gag orders so the American public won't know about what's going
on within their agencies and in their government, even within their
Congress. And that is the focus point, and I have been trying--what I
have written to the state and to the Congress, and in my interviews,
to steer away from the fact that, yes, I was fired, yes, I was wronged,
and they retaliated against me, and how they ruined my life--which is
all true, but this is not where I want to focus, and this is not where
I want the country to focus. This is not where I want the country to
focus, where I want the Congress to focus.

I'm not saying, "Look, they did wrong to me, and this is not
fair." I'm saying, "I came forward because criminal activities are
taking place, have been taking place, some of them since 1997." Some
of these activities are 100% related to [the] 9/11 terrorist attack
in the United States, and they are giving this illusion that they are
pursuing these cases, but they are not. If the case is, touches upon,
certain countries or certain high-level people, certain sensitive
relations, then they don't. But on the other hand, they go, like,
they talk about lower-level criminal activities that--lower-level
people like Atta and Hami (ph).

SH: Well, alright, so let's get into that criminal activity, then. The
semi-legit organization that, I think, you most often are referring to
here, I believe I can deduce, is the American-Turkish Council, which
is headed by Brett Scowcroft, the former National Security Advisor
of the United States, and is packed with the leaders of Raytheon,
Motorola, Boeing, Lockheed, Martin Marietta, and some of the most
powerful company names in the military-industrial complex.

SE: Correct.

SH: Now, is the ATC just one of the many semi-legitimate organizations
that you're referring to? Or is most of this story focused on the
ATC itself?

SE: It's one of, it's one of many. There are many, there are many
organizations.

SH: And many organizations that you actually were overhearing.

SE: I cannot talk to you about what I was overhearing, but, as I have
pointed out, there are several organizations.

SH: OK. And you mentioned, when you talked about criminal activity,
drug running, money laundering, weapons smuggling--

SE: And these activities overlap. It's not, like, OK, you have certain
criminal entities who are active in [the] nuclear black market,
and then you have certain criminal activities who are bringing the
narcotics from the East. You have the same players. When you look
into these activities at [a] high level, you come across the same
players. They are the same people.

SH: Well, when we're talking about those kind of levels of liquid cash,
to my mind we also have to include major banks, too, right?

SE: Financial institutions, yes.

SH: Did you learn of anything which implicated Brett Scowcroft or,
and/or, the leadership of the ATC in this corruption?

SE: As I said, I do not talk about this information, and Vanity Fair
has gotten through various sources, official sources, the information
about the ATC and they have written an article about it, but I do
not talk about targets.

SH: I understand. And David Rose, in fact, did write in the Vanity
Fair article that there wasn't anything that he knows of that you
found that directly implicated Brent Scowcroft.

SE: And again, that depends on who was the source, and the sources of
the information that particular source provided, but I can't confirm
or not confirm it.

SH: I see. I want to get a promise out of you that when they finally
lift this gag order, that I get to interview you first. I got a long
list of questions that I can't ask.

SE: Sure, and believe me, once that is lifted, the state-secrets
privilege, and once the court case actually begins, and we have the
witnesses and we can subpoena documents, it will be public and it
will be major. And it will make the AIPAC case look lame, actually.

SH: Oh! It will make the AIPAC case look lame!

SE: Correct.

**Gavur** · 08-17-2005, 09:10 PM

Part dree

SH: --in April of 2001, that was even confirmed by Mueller, the
director of the FBI.

SE: Absolutely, and there was actually an article in [the] Chicago
Tribune in July 2004, saying that even Mueller expressed surprise
that during the hearings, the 9/11 commissioners didn't ask about
this. And guess what?

Nobody reported all these omissions, and now they're putting this,
and the commissioners are saying, "Oh, we don't recall." Well, what
would happen if you hit them with 20 cases? And I'm talking about 20
affidavits from expert and veteran agents.

SH: Well, basically, this is all around the question of prior knowledge
and who knew what-when, before the attack.

SE: And also what happens afterwards, and I started working three days
after September 11th, but a lot of documents and wiretaps on why it
happened, that I was translating, well, some of them dated back to 1997
and 1998. So even after September 11, covering up these investigations
and not pursuing some of these investigations because the Department
of State says, "You know what? You can't pursue this, because that
may deal with this particular country. If these are countries that
these investigations deal with, are not one of the 'axes of evil,'
we don't want to pursue that." I mean, that--the American people have
the right to know this. I mean, this is just--they're getting this
grand illusion as if there are some investigations, when there are
not. You know, they're coming down on these charities as the financing
of Al Qaida. Well, if you were to talk about financing of Al Qaida,
a very small percentage comes from these charity foundations. [The]
vast majority of their financing comes from narcotics. Look, we had
4 to 6% of the narcotics coming to the US, coming from the East,
coming from Pakistan and Afghanistan via the Balkans into the United
States. Today, three, four years after September 11th, that has
reached 15, over 15%. How is it getting here?

Who are getting the proceedings from this narcotics?

SH: Right. Well, you have the same people who make it illegal to
drive up the price? Maybe not. I don't know. Now, listen, when you
talk about the State Department and sensitive diplomatic ties with
foreign countries that they would prefer not [to] stepped on, I'm
sorry, but the word "Israel" is just screaming on the inside of my
head here. I guess you can't give me any indication to, yes or no,
that's what you're talking about.

SE: Well, what is interesting with [the] Vanity Fair article,
I don't know how many people picked up on that, but they're saying
Turkic--Turkish counTRIES. It's a plural, people. And to look and say,
OK, you're looking at this region of the world that nobody is referring
to in the War Against Terror. OK, you're looking at Kyrgyzstan and
Kazakhistan and Uzbekistan, and these are the countries that now we are
busy establishing bases in. And a large portion of their GDP depends
on narcotics. And there's a presence, Al Qaida presence, in these
countries. We don't hear anything about Balkan countries and, again,
their direct ties and their direct relevance to Al Qaida. They are not
even naming these countries. The role that Pakistan played before and
the role that Pakistan is playing today. So, as I said, as I have said
before, there are several countries, there are several organizations,
and not just say, isolate just one country or one organization.

SH: Alright, everybody, it's the Weekend Interview Show. We'll get
right back after this break to wrap up with Sibel Edmonds. Her Web
site is justacitizen.com. [commercial break] Alright, my friends,
welcome back to the Weekend Interview Show. I'm Scott Horton, and
I'm talking with Sibel Edmonds. Her Web site is justacitizen.com and
you can read what she writes at antiwar.com/edmonds. Now, we've only
got a few minutes left here, but I want to get to your appearance on
Democracy Now earlier in the week. In referring to officials at the
State Department, you used the word "treason."

And I wonder whether this is specifically referring to the September
11th attacks and whether you have information that indicates complicity
on the part of American elites who are part of the semi-legit
organizations that funded September 11th, or are we talking "seven
degrees of Kevin Bacon" here?

SE: Again, it's hard to talk about this around the gag order, but
this is what I have been saying for [the] past three years. That's
what I refer to in the transcript of CBS "60 Minutes." These people
who call themselves Americans, and these people who are using their
position, their official position within these agencies, some of
them in the Department of Defense, some of them in the Department
of State, and, yes, what they are doing is using their position
and their influence against the United States national security and
against the best interests of its people. And that is treason, be it
giving information to those that are either quasi-allies, and I would
underline "quasi," because if you're talking about evil, Axis of Evil,
I'm referring to quasi-allies who, one day, will be another Al Qaida,
and who are already engaged in activities that are damaging to our
country, security, and its interests. And that is treason.

SH: If I had--go ahead.

SE: Sure, go ahead.

SH: No, please finish.

SE: So that's what I was referring to. And what would you call someone
who--let's say if they were to go after Douglas Feith, OK? And if
they were able to establish that Douglas Feith, with his access to
information, willingly, intentionally, used his position, used the
information he had, and gave it to those that would one day use it,
or maybe right now are using that information against the United
States. Would you call that treason?

SH: Well, if it's an overt act to benefit an American enemy, then,
yep, that's treason.

SE: Correct. And as I said, those lines are so blurry, because there
are certain countries that we call allies that--I wouldn't call
them allies.

They--these people are--these countries are quasi-allies.

SH: OK. Now I'm going to go ahead and name some people who I suspect
inside the State Department and the Pentagon, and I suppose you won't
be able to answer affirmative or negative on any of these. But I'm
very curious when I read about this kind of corruption going on in
the State Department, I immediately think--well, particularly in the
first term--I immediately think of John Bolton and David Wimser[ph]. Do
those names mean anything to you?

SE: Well, first of all, I'm not going to answer that question at
all. But you also should pay attention to the fact that some of these
people have been there for awhile. And some of those people have had
their roots in there even in [the] mid-1990s.

SH: Ah, so more career officials, rather than political appointees.

SE: Or maybe a mixture of both.

SH: Maybe a mixture of both. Thank you very much for your time today,
Sibel.

SE: Thank you, Scott.

SH: I sure wish they'd let you talk.

SE: Well, maybe one day.

SH: OK. Take good care. Everybody, we're going to be right back talking
with Bob Dreyfus, all about the Israeli spies in the Pentagon. Stay
tuned.

**Gavur** · 08-17-2005, 09:25 PM

Turkish contribution to campaign fund to be investigated

Turkish contribution to campaign fund to be investigated

WASHINGTON (AP) - A watchdog group filed a complaint Tuesday urging
U.S. government election officials to investigate whether House
Speaker Dennis Hastert's campaign fund illegally accepted campaign
contributions from foreign nationals.

The complaint from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government
- a self-described nonpartisan, progressive group - relied upon an
article published in the September issue of Vanity Fair to argue the
FEC should pursue the matter.

The account in Vanity Fair says a former fired FBI translator, Sibil
Edmonds, has reported having heard Turkish wiretap targets boast
that they had a covert relationship with Hastert. It says the targets
reportedly discussed giving Hastert tens of thousands of dollars in
secret payments in exchange for political favors and information.

The group, whose executive director, Melanie Sloan, is a former federal
prosecutor and counsel to House Democrats, suggested that the Illinois
Republican's campaign fund could have received hundreds of unitemized
contributions of $200 (162.43) or less from foreign nationals in 2000
and 2001 because Hastert raised so much money in small amounts.

Name and address information is not required for such small donations.

"The sheer number of small contributions should have raised a red
flag," Sloan said in a statement. "Hastert's campaign committee was
obligated to ensure that no laws were being broken. It's now time for
a thorough investigation into Hastert's finances." Hastert spokesman
Ron Bonjean ridiculed the complaint.

FEC spokesman George Smaragdis said the agency, traditionally, has
no comment when complaints are initially filed.

08/16/05 16:08 EDT

**Gavur** · 08-17-2005, 09:28 PM

Hastert funding is under scrutiny

Aurora Beacon News, IL
Aug 17 2005

Hastert funding is under scrutiny
~U Investigation sought: Group which has ties to Democrats wants
claims of impropriety examined

By Ed Fanselow Staff WRITER

WASHINGTON - A magazine story alleging a covert relationship between
a group of Turkish nationals and House Speaker Dennis Hastert
has prompted a group of leading Democrats to call for a federal
investigation into the claims.

The story, published in the September issue of Vanity Fair magazine,
relies on an uncorroborated account from a former FBI translator, who
says she overheard Turkish wiretap targets - who were the subject of
counter-intelligence investigations - brag of funneling thousands of
dollars into Hastert's campaign fund in exchange for political favors.

The translator told the magazine that the donations were to be made
in payments of less than $200, which do not have to be itemized under
Federal Election Commission rules.

The Yorkville Republican himself was never heard in the recordings, the
translator told the magazine, and the story's author admitted that the
Turks supposed claims may have been nothing more than "hollow boasts.
"

Still, the story caught the eye of the Citizens for Responsibility and
Ethics in Washington (CREW), which on Tuesday filed a complaint with
the FEC calling for "a thorough investigation into Hastert's finances."

The group, founded by the former senior counsel to House Democrats,
was responsible for drafting a complaint against House Majority Leader
Tom DeLay, R-Texas, for which he was admonished last year.

In a written statement, CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan suggests
that the translator's claims warrant a closer look since Hastert
recorded an inordinately high amount of small, unitemized donations
between 1996 and 2002.

According to the FEC, the Hastert For Congress Committee reported more
than $480,000 in donations of less than $200 during that 7-year period.

By comparison, DeLay reported receiving less than $100,000 during
the same span.

"The sheer number of small contributions should have raised a red
flag," Sloan said.

John McGovern, a Hastert spokesman, called the allegations
"outlandish."

"These are ridiculous and reckless claims from a Democratic front group
that have no basis in reality," he said Tuesday. "It's just not true."

According to the Vanity Fair report, the Turks were apparently looking
for Hastert to help derail a 2000 House resolution designating the
killings of thousands of Armenians in Turkey during the 1920s as
genocide.

The controversial issue has long been a source of hostility between
the two countries as well as between Americans of Armenian and
Turkish descent.

The magazine alleges that Hastert originally supported the resolution,
only to reverse his position and withdraw it from consideration on
the House floor.

Another Hastert spokesman told the magazine, though, that the speaker's
about-face came only after a personal appeal from then-President
Bill Clinton.

"To insinuate anything else," the spokesman said, "just doesn't
make sense."

**imported_anoush** · 08-18-2005, 01:53 PM

SE: Well, sure, it's on their Web site. They are this organization,
lobbying organization, for Turkish business and relationship between
the United States and Turkey. It's exactly like AIPAC.

SH: Oh, good. Oh, exactly like AIPAC?

SE: Exactly. In fact, they have so many crossovers, if you look at
their members, you will basically see many members that basically
are in both organizations. And if you look at the people who are
in the management and that are in charge of this lobbying group,
you come across the same names.

Hovik,

After reading the quotation from an article I did NOT post, do you still think what I told you is wrong? You still think putting the microscope on turkey's government alone is right?

**Gavur** · 08-19-2005, 01:48 AM

Turkish Official Talks Of Bribing House Speaker To Kill Genocide Bill

TURKISH OFFICIAL TALKS OF BRIBING HOUSE SPEAKER TO KILL GENOCIDE BILL

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.

By Harut Sassounian; Publisher, The California Courier

**Gavur** · 08-22-2005, 08:21 PM

Turks Scare Themselves by Claiming

Turks Scare Themselves by Claiming
Armenians Spend Millions on Lobbying

By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier

Hundreds of Turkish "scholars" are hired by various centers, institutes and
foundations in Turkey to write and publish articles and books on Armenian
issues, in general, and the Armenian Genocide, in particular.
Almost all of these centers, funded directly or indirectly by Turkish
governmental sources, have been set up to produce anti-Armenian propaganda
which is translated into dozens of languages and mailed to libraries,
parliaments, scholars and journalists around the world.
Despite the millions of dollars spent on this propaganda war, the Turkish
government is apparently not satisfied with the results. Foreign Minister
Abdullah Gul announced last month that Ankara was devoting even more
resources to this campaign in order to flood the world with revisionist
materials on the Armenian Genocide.
One of these Turkish propaganda mills, appropriately located in Ankara, is
called the Institute for Armenian Research (Ermeni Arastirmalari
Enstitusu), a division of the Center for Eurasian Strategic Studies. This
so-called Institute has been publishing a periodical since 2001 that is
exclusively dedicated to denigrating Armenians.
Last week, Fatma Sarikaya, a Board member of the Turkish Forum, translated
into English and posted on the Forum's web site a summarized version of an
article on the Armenian-American lobby, written by Dr. Senol Kantarci, a
researcher at the Institute for Armenian Research. The article was
originally written in Turkish and published in the Institute's periodical
in 2001, under the title: "The Armenian Lobby: The Creation of the Armenian
Diaspora in America and the Lobby's Activities."
While Kantarci's Turkish article remained unknown and unread, Sarikaya's
English translation attracted widespread attention after it was posted on
several Turkish and Armenian web sites. Her version had a more sensational
title: "Money spent by the Armenian Lobby in America: In 1994 alone, the
Armenian Assembly of America spent $7,000,000, most of it on lobbying the
Congress."
Not surprisingly, the article contains many historical and factual errors
that even a high school student, let alone a "researcher" with a Ph.D.,
would not make. Before refuting the ridiculous Turkish claim that
Armenian-Americans spend astronomic sums to lobby Congress, let's focus on
some of the other assertions made by the author.
Kantarci wrote that Armenian students started arriving in America as early
as 1840. He said that these young men were "raised with hate for the Turks.
Though small in number, this elite group of Armenians was very effective in
creating anti-Turkish sentiments in America." Kantarci is trying to make
the point that Armenians have been campaigning in America against Turkey
for 165 years. What he does not say is why these young Armenians from
Turkey were so anti-Turkish? What had the Turks done to them and their
families, even before the Genocide, to cause them to have such intense
feelings against Turks?
To justify the advances scored by Armenian political activists in recent
years and excuse the Turkish setbacks, Kantarci wrote: "Hundreds of
Armenian lobby groups were founded in America. The total number is
staggering when considering they all have branches in all corners of the
land. Excluding the
religious groups, the number of Armenian establishments is 1,046. With the
religious groups this number reaches 1,228. The aim of all these
establishments is making anti-Turkish propaganda...."
Kantarci further claimed that, while the Armenian population in America is
estimated between 800,000 and one million, "their representation in
Congress is far beyond proportion." This is obviously false, as there are
no Armenian-Americans at all in the Senate and only two House members are
partly of Armenian origin.
After misstating the names and activities of many Armenian-American
organizations, Kantarci made his biggest mistake by claiming: "In 1994
alone, the Armenian Assembly of America spent $7,000,000 - most of it on
lobbying the Congress."
The claim that Armenians spend huge sums to lobby Congress completely
freaked out some Turks. For example, one Turk after reading Kantarci's
article, wrote on a Turkish web site that even though he loves eating
basturma very much, he would be forced to give it up, because most of the
basturma sold in the U.S. is made by Armenians. He said he feared that a
part of the money he pays to the Armenian shop owner for the basturma would
go towards Armenian lobbying efforts.
Kantarci's reported lobbying figures are completely false. The Armenian
Assembly and all other Armenian groups collectively do not spend even a
tiny fraction of the $7 million claimed in his article.
According to the publicly available figures for the latest three years of
tax returns of the Armenian Assembly, the organization has spent on
legislative lobbying just $30,000 in 2003; $27,000 in 2002; and $100,000 in
2001. For the year 1994, the Assembly informed this writer that it had
spent a total of $272,000 on governmental, legal and lobbying efforts. One
can safely assume that less than $100,000 of that amount may have been
spent strictly on lobbying the Congress. This is a far cry from the $7
million
claimed by this Turkish "scholar."
The facts clearly point out that Armenians spend very little on lobbying.
On the contrary, it is the Turkish government that spends millions of
dollars to hire the best American lobbying firms that money can buy. When a
country is trying to cover up a massive crime like genocide, it does need
to spend millions of dollars. Even then, as the Turks found out, it is a
total waste of their money. You cannot hide a genocide, no matter how much
money you spend!
But when you have the truth on your side, as Armenians do, you don't need
to spend millions on lobbying!

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