Pence says Turkey ties are "affirmation" of decision to fire Flynn

PanARMENIAN.Net - Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday, March 9 that former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s work to further the interests of the government of Turkey is “an affirmation” of President Donald Trump’s decision to ask for his resignation, CBS News reports.

Pence told Fox News’ Bret Baier in an interview airing Thursday evening that media reports about Flynn’s work were “the first I heard of it and I think it is an affirmation of the President’s decision to ask General Flynn to resign.”

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that Trump was not aware of Flynn’s ties to Turkey before appointing him. Spicer’s comments came two days after Flynn and his firm, Flynn Intel Group Inc., filed paperwork with the Justice Department formally identifying him as a foreign agent and acknowledging that his work for a company owned by a Turkish businessman could have aided Turkey’s government.

Asked whether Trump knew about Flynn’s work before he appointed him as national security adviser, Spicer said, “I don’t believe that that was known.”

Flynn and his company filed the registration paperwork describing $530,000 worth of lobbying before Election Day on behalf of Inovo BV, a Dutch-based company owned by Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin. In an interview with The Associated Press, Alptekin said Flynn did so after pressure from Justice Department officials.

The filing this week was the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s first acknowledgement that his consulting business furthered the interests of a foreign government while he was working as a top adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign.

Flynn’s disclosure that his lobbying - from August through November- may have benefited Turkey’s authoritarian government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan came as Flynn has drawn scrutiny from the FBI for his contacts with Russian officials. Trump fired Flynn last month for misleading Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.

In paperwork filed with the Justice Department’s Foreign Agent Registration Unit, Flynn and his firm acknowledged that his lobbying “could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey.” The lobbying contract ended after Trump’s election in November, according to the paperwork.