Michael Flynn's ex-business associates indicted in Turkey lobbying case

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia - Two former business associates of Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, have been indicted as part of a federal investigation into Turkey’s secret 2016 lobbying campaign to pressure the United States to expel a rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Charges against the two former associates, Bijan Kian and Ekim Alptekin, were unsealed Monday in an Alexandria, Virginia, courtroom.

The two men were indicted last week as part of what prosecutors say was a conspiracy to violate federal lobbying rules. Alptekin was also charged with making false statements to FBI investigators.

The indictment is further evidence of a broad crackdown on unregistered foreign lobbying growing from the inquiry by Robert Mueller, the special counsel who has investigated foreign flows of money from Ukraine, Turkey and other countries devised to manipulate decision-making in Washington. Mueller referred the Turkey case back to prosecutors in Northern Virginia.

The indictment said that the two men sought to conceal that Turkey was directing the work, and that high-level Turkish officials approved the budget for the project and were given regular updates by Alptekin about the campaign’s progress. Flynn’s firm - Flynn Intel Group - received a total of $530,000 for its work.

“The defendants sought to discredit and delegitimize the Turkish citizen in the eyes of politicians and the public,” the indictment said.

Flynn is scheduled to be sentenced today in federal court in Washington on charges of lying to investigators about his conversations with the Russian ambassador during the transition after the 2016 election.

When he pleaded guilty last December to lying to FBI agents working on the Russia investigation, Flynn also admitted to prosecutors that he had repeatedly violated laws requiring firms to register their work on behalf of foreign clients.

This month, Mueller’s prosecutors issued a sentencing memorandum saying that Flynn had provided “substantial help” in several unspecified but continuing investigations.

It is believed that the Turkey inquiry is one of these investigations because he had direct knowledge of different aspects of the case.

Prosecutors cited Flynn’s assistance as grounds for leniency in his sentencing.

Kian, dressed in a dapper blue suit, stood silently in court Monday as the charges were announced.

He was released after the hearing, and his lawyer declined to comment. Prosecutors said that he faces up to 15 years in prison and Alptekin up to 35 years.

Alptekin’s current location is unknown. Through a spokeswoman, he denied the charges, claiming that he never lied to the FBI and that Turkey did not participate in the project.

There has been a surge of criminal investigations into foreign lobbying, some of them initiated by Mueller’s investigators.