Category Archives: DOJ, DC and inside the Beltway

Obama Admin Tried to Partner with Burisma

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Where is Chairman Adam Schiff now? He brought in George Kent, the former charge d’affair at the Kiev embassy for testimony. And the whistle blew except Schiff did not run out to the hallway outside his office to the nearest microphone.
Hat tip again to John Solomon for his report and tireless investigative work.
In part from his report:

George Kent, the former charge d’affair at the Kiev embassy, said in testimony released Thursday that the State Department’s main foreign aid agency, known as USAID, planned to co-sponsor a clean energy project with Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian gas firm that employed Hunter Biden as a board member.

At the time of the proposed project, Burisma was under investigation in Ukraine for alleged corruption. Those cases were settled in late 2016 and early 2017. Burisma contested allegations of corruption but paid a penalty for tax issues.

Kent testified he personally intervened in mid-2016 to stop USAID’s joint project with Burisma because American officials believed the corruption allegations against the gas firm raised concern.

“There apparently was an effort for Burisma to help cosponsor, I guess, a contest that USAID was sponsoring related to clean energy. And when I heard about it I asked USAID to stop that sponsorship,” Kent told lawmakers.

When asked why he intervened, he answered: “”Because Burisma had a poor reputation in the business, and I didn’t think it was appropriate for the U.S. Government to be co-sponsoring something with a company that had a bad reputation.”

Kent’s testimony confirms earlier text messages I reported on in September. Those text messages show that Devon Archer — Hunter Biden’s business associate and fellow board member on Burisma — boasted to an American lawyer in December 2015 that the pair was seeking to do a project with USAID.

And internal State memos I obtained this week under FOIA show Hunter Biden and Archer had multiple contacts with Secretary of State John Kerry and Deputy Secretary Tony Blinken in 2015-16, and that Burisma’s own American legal team was lobbying State to help eliminate the corruption allegations against it in Ukraine.

Hunter Biden’s name was specifically invoked as a reason why State officials should assist, the memos show. A month after Burisma’s contact with State, Joe Biden leveraged the threat of withholding U.S. foreign aid to force Ukraine to fire its chief prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who at the time was overseeing the Burisma probe.

Joe Biden says he forced the firing because he believed Shokin was ineffective, but Shokin says he was told he was fired because the American ice president was unhappy the prosecutor would not drop the Burisma probe.

Okay, so just to continue to check things out here for context and details, I trotted over to the Obama White House archives…BINGO! YIPPEE….Solomon is right on point.

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2014 and read carefully the following:

For Immediate Release
April 21, 2014

FACT SHEET: U.S. Crisis Support Package for Ukraine

President Obama and Vice President Biden have made U.S. support for Ukraine an urgent priority as the Ukrainian government works to establish security and stability, pursue democratic elections and constitutional reform, revive its economy, and ensure government institutions are transparent and accountable to the Ukrainian people.  Ukraine embarks on this reform path in the face of severe challenges to its sovereignty and territorial integrity, which we are working to address together with Ukraine and our partners in the international community.  The United States is committed to ensuring that Ukrainians alone are able to determine their country’s future without intimidation or coercion from outside forces.  To support Ukraine, we are today announcing a new package of assistance totaling $50 million to help Ukraine pursue political and economic reform and strengthen the partnership between the United States and Ukraine.

Elections and Constitutional Reform:  Constitutional reform and free and fair elections are keys to Ukraine’s democratic development.  Assistance in this area is a down payment on the country’s democratic development.  We stand ready to provide further assistance to the new government after elections.

  • The United States is contributing an $11.4 million package to support the integrity of the May 25 elections.   These funds are being used to advance democratic processes – not to support a particular candidate or electoral outcome.  These efforts include voter education programs, transparent election administration, effective oversight of the election process, election security and a redress of infractions, and a diverse, balanced and policy-focused media environment.
  • The United States is contributing support and monitors to the OSCE’s election observation mission and other monitoring groups.  U.S. funded programs will provide at least 250 long-term observers and over 1,700 short-term observers.
  • We are also sending additional experts to provide advice on issues such as constitutional checks and balances, local governance, public participation, and the establishment of an independent, transparent judicial system.

Economic Assistance:  The United States has already signed a $1 billion loan guarantee to help Ukraine meet its financial obligations and protect vulnerable citizens from the impact of economic adjustments.  We have also supported Ukraine’s work with the IMF to secure a loan program worth $14-$18 billion.   As these U.S., IMF, and European funds begin to flow, we will have technical experts from the U.S. Treasury Department on the ground to help the Ukrainian government allocate them effectively to stabilize the economy and ensure all the regions benefit.  Currently, there are three banking advisors in Kyiv and we will be deploying public debt management and macroeconomic advisors in the coming week.  We are also committed to providing additional technical assistance in the areas of budget and tax administration.

Energy Security:  Over the coming weeks, expert teams from several U.S. government agencies will travel to the region to help Ukraine meet immediate and longer term energy needs.

  • Today, a U.S. interagency expert team arrived in Kyiv to help Ukraine secure reverse flows of natural gas from its European neighbors.  The team will continue on to Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia in the coming days to work on the details of these arrangements.  Reverse flows of natural gas will provide Ukraine with additional immediate sources of energy.
  • U.S. technical experts will join with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and others in May to help Ukraine develop a public-private investment initiative to increase conventional gas production from existing fields to boost domestic energy supply.  A technical team will also engage the government on measures that will help the Ukrainian government ensure swift and environmentally sustainable implementation of contracts signed in 2013 for shale gas development.
  • Department of Energy and USAID specialists will travel to Ukraine next month to provide advice on how to maximize energy efficiency, which could deliver potentially huge cost savings to Ukraine and rationalize energy consumption.

Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption:  The United States is committed to helping Ukraine break the cycle of corruption that acts as a tax on business, an impediment to economic growth, and a drain on public trust in government.  Technical advisors from the Departments of State and Justice have already been advising the government on anti-corruption measures.  Today we are expanding this assistance program with additional commitments.

  • Attorney General Holder will co-host an international conference in London April 29-30 to help identify, trace, and recover proceeds of corruption stolen by the former regime.  This is part of an ongoing effort, including work by an FBI investigative team on the ground in Kyiv to help the government of Ukraine recover assets stolen from the Ukrainian people.
  • The United States will provide advice and assistance to help modernize Ukraine’s government procurement in accordance with international standards, including the creation of a vetted anti-corruption unit.   We will offer technical assistance to that vetted unit to help build a sustainable anti-corruption regime within Ukraine, as we have done with substantial results in other parts of the world.
  • Specialized teams of prosecutors and investigators will help the Ukrainian government with other forms of technical assistance to put in place the proper legal and regulatory framework to fight corruption.  The teams will also serve as a resource to ensure follow-through and effective implementation.

People-to-People Ties:  To further strengthen ties between the people of Ukraine and the United States, we are announcing our intent to establish a new bilateral visa regime that will extend the standard validity of visas for businesspeople and tourists from 5 years to 10 years on a negotiated reciprocal basis.

Security Assistance:  In addition to the $50 million package, today we are announcing the provision of $8 million of non-lethal military assistance to allow the Ukrainian armed forces and State Border Guard Service to fulfill their core security missions.  The additional supplies include:

  • Explosive Ordnance Disposal equipment and handheld radios for Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
  • Engineering equipment, communications equipment, vehicles, and non-lethal individual tactical gear for Ukraine’s Border Guard Service.

This is in addition to the $3 million of Meals Ready to Eat and nearly $7 million of health and welfare assistance the United States is already providing to Ukraine.  The United States will continue to actively review requests for additional support as Ukraine’s government further modernizes its armed forces and deals with evolving threats.

The Lawyer’s Plot for the Coup Against Trump

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Have you met Edward Luttwak? You can be sure the lawyer for the Whistleblower has. Luttwak published a book titled Coup D’ Etat, the practical handbook.

Coup d’État astonished readers when it first appeared in 1968 because it showed, step by step, how governments could be overthrown. Translated into sixteen languages, it has inspired anti-coup precautions by regimes around the world. In addition to these detailed instructions, Edward Luttwak’s revised handbook offers an altogether new way of looking at political power—one that considers, for example, the vulnerability to coups of even the most stable democracies in the event of prolonged economic distress.

So we have this cat, Mark Zaid. Within minutes of the inaugural event for President Trump, Zaid’s tweets began stating the coup has begun. Now the question is who in Washington DC was watching, considering and conspiring to join the coup army…plenty.

Mark Zaid: It’s troubling that Trump gave Jared Kushner security clearance

Zaid is a known quantity inside the Beltway.

Zaid is a recognized expert in Federal court especially in whistle-blower cases. These cases almost always include leaking or publishing classified material as such is/was the case of Edward Snowden. The Zaid law firm, where he is the managing partner includes at least 5 other lawyers handling cases of national security, diplomatic immunity, defamation cases and international transactions. Zaid is the founder of the James Madison Project, a non-profit organization that takes on government agencies for alleged wrong-doing, coverups and secrecy policies. Note however he never took on Hillary and Libya…or the email server scandal….

Mr. Zaid has testified before several committees in the House and the Senate all with the twist of meeting the ‘curiosity of this town’ as noted on the law firms website. With his early launch of the coup has started, you can bet some of this friendlies on The Hill followed his legal handbook and we are now enduring what Congressman Nunes calls a paper coup. Zaid has TS/SCI clearance and that add more bona fides to his power within the offices of the Democrats that include for sure Speaker Pelosi that is often providing all the permissions needed to Congressman Adam Schiff leading the impeachment inquiries.

Does anyone wonder how come Mr. Zaid never took any whistle-blower cases as they related to the Obama administration or even John Kerry with regard to the Iran deal? How about the IRS targeting operation or any of the other scandals in recent years….just sayin…

Okay, then there is also the other lawyer and law firm that has Andrew Bakaj with Compass Rose Legal Group.

 

 

An attorney who left the CIA in 2014 after facing professional retaliation for trying to work with intelligence community whistleblowers is now representing the U.S. official who reportedly filed a complaint alleging wrongdoing by President Trump.

Attorney Profiles – Compass Rose Legal Group, PLLC

Andrew Bakaj, a national security attorney working for Compass Rose Legal Group, a Washington national security law firm, has taken on the still unidentified whistleblower as his newest client, according to information first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by Yahoo News.

According to his Linkedin profile, Bakaj was an intern at the U.S. State Department from June 2002 to August 2002 at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine. He, “Created the Embassy’s fraud database, performed various counter-fraud duties, interviewed visa candidates, translated official Ukrainian/Russian documents into English, and represented official U.S. interests at various events throughout Ukraine.

On September 24, Bakaj sent a ‘Notice of Intent to Contact Congressional Intelligence Committees’ letter to acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who took over for Dan Coats directly with the complaint. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff, who was copied on Bakaj’s letter, responded the same day. Schiff, who represented California’s 28th congressional district, asked for the whistleblower to come in for “voluntary interview” after Maguire testifies in a rare, open session Thursday, September 26, in a “secure location.”

Bakaj made a $100 campaign contribution to former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 Democratic presidential primary campaign through ActBlue, according to Federal Election Commission records. He made the contribution on April 26, 2019. ActBlue is a nonprofit that facilitates contributions to Democratic candidates.

Bakaj interned for Senator Chuck Schumer in the spring of 2001 and for then-Senator Hillary Clinton the fall of the same year. Hat tip.

Saudi Spies Inside Twitter?

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The case actually began in 2013/2014. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a fund for educational scholarships in foreign countries. Social media being so full of international intersections along with having the whole political correct agenda of employing foreign citizens to enhance global integration, Twitter in this case brought on their own problem.

Twitter fired an engineer after the company was tipped off by intelligence officials that he may have been groomed by the Saudi government.

Saudi Arabia formally starts IPO of oil firm Saudi Aramco | The Seattle Times

The criminal complaint found here, has the details. Were these foreign operatives, moles, a troll army or really spies? Perhaps all of it seems. Many things can be determined by regular citizens performing full reviews of Twitter accounts including accounts that are bots, fake or where many accounts are owned by the same individual. This is in the public feed. There is also the matter of Direct Messages where more personal detail is found. All collected and analyzed a larger story is revealed. Such is the case here.

In reality, Saudi Arabia is not the only nation performing such activities, you can bet other rogue or friendly nations do the same within social media platforms. In fact our own government agencies do the very same thing to other nations and worst of all, our own government does the same on Americans and foreign nationals within the borders of the United States. Apply some critical thinking here and read on.

Flipboard: U.S. Charges Former Twitter Employees With ...

In part from Associated Press:

The accounts included those of a popular critic of the government with more than 1 million followers and a news personality. Neither was named.

The complaint also alleged that the employees — whose jobs did not require access to Twitter users’ private information — were rewarded with a designer watch and tens of thousands of dollars funneled into secret bank accounts. Ahmad Abouammo, a U.S. citizen, and Ali Alzabarah, a Saudi citizen, were charged with acting as agents of Saudi Arabia without registering with the U.S. government.

The Saudi government had no immediate comment through its embassy in Washington. Its state-run media did not immediately acknowledge the charges.

The complaint marks the first time that the kingdom, long linked to the U.S. through its massive oil reserves and regional security arrangements, has been accused of spying in America.

The allegations against two former Twitter employees and a third man who ran a social media marketing company that did work for the Saudi royal family comes a little more than a year after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. The Washington Post columnist and prominent critic of the Saudi government was slain and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Saudi Arabia under King Salman and Prince Mohammed has aggressively silenced and detained government critics even as it allows women to drive and opens movie theaters in the conservative kingdom.

Prince Mohammed also has been implicated by U.S. officials and a United Nations investigative report in the assassination of Khashoggi. The prince has said he bears ultimate responsibility for what happens in the kingdom’s name, though he denies orchestrating the slaying.

The criminal allegations reveal the extent the Saudi government went to control the flow of information on Twitter, said Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher with Human Rights Watch.

The platform is the main place for Saudis to express their views, and about a third of the nation’s 30 million people are active users. But the free-wheeling nature of Twitter is a major source of concern for its authoritarian government, Coogle said.

The kingdom has used different tactics to control speech and keep reformers and others from organizing, including employing troll armies to harass and intimidate users online. It has even arrested and imprisoned Twitter users.

The crown prince’s former top adviser, Saud al-Qahtani, who also served as director of the cyber security federation, started the “Black List” hashtag to target critics of the government. He ominously tweeted in 2017 that the government had ways of unmasking anonymous Twitter users.

“If you combine that with what we know about at least these two individuals and what went on in 2014 and into 2015, it’s pretty chilling,” Coogle said.

Al-Qahtani has been sanctioned for his suspected role in orchestrating the brutal killing of Khashoggi. His Twitter account was suspended in September for violating the platform’s manipulation policy.

Twitter acknowledged that it cooperated in the criminal investigation and said in a statement that it restricts access to sensitive account information “to a limited group of trained and vetted employees.”

“We understand the incredible risks faced by many who use Twitter to share their perspectives with the world and to hold those in power accountable,” the statement said. “We have tools in place to protect their privacy and their ability to do their vital work.”

A critic said Twitter didn’t live up to its principle of restricting access to information about private individuals to the smallest possible number of employees.

“If Twitter had implemented this principle, this misappropriation of information would not have been possible,” said Mike Chapple, who teaches cybersecurity at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. “Social media companies must understand the sensitivity of this information and restrict access to the smallest possible number of employees. Failing to do so puts the privacy, and even the physical safety, of social media users at risk.”

Abouammo was also charged with falsifying documents and making false statements to obstruct FBI investigators — offenses that carry a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison if convicted.

At his appearance in Seattle federal court Wednesday, Abouammo was ordered to remain in custody pending a detention hearing set for Friday.

His lawyer, Christopher Black, declined to comment, as did Abouammo’s wife, who did not give her name.

The complaint said Abouammo, a media partnership manager for Twitter’s Middle East region, and Alzabarah, a site reliability engineer at Twitter, worked with an unnamed Saudi official who leads a charitable organization belonging to a person named Royal Family Member 1.

Prosecutors said a third defendant, a Saudi named Ahmed Almutairi who worked as a social media adviser for the Saudi royal family, acted as an intermediary with the Twitter employees.

The complaint said Almutairi recruited Alzabarah and flew him to Washington, D.C., in the spring of 2015, when a Saudi delegation visited the White House. Based on the context and times mentioned in the complaint, including Alzabarah taking a selfie with the royal while in Washington, it appears Prince Mohammed is that royal. The crown prince had traveled there as part of the delegation when he served as deputy crown prince.

“Within one week of returning to San Francisco, Alzabarah began to access without authorization private data of Twitter users en masse,” the complaint said.

The effort included the user data of over 6,000 Twitter users, including at least 33 usernames for which Saudi Arabian law enforcement had submitted emergency disclosure requests to Twitter, investigators said.

After being confronted by his supervisors at Twitter, Alzabarah acknowledged accessing user data and said he did it out of curiosity, authorities said.

Alzabarah was placed on administrative leave, his work-owned laptop was seized, and he was escorted out of the office. The next day, he flew to Saudi Arabia with his wife and daughter and has not returned to the United States, investigators said.

A warrant for his and Almutairi’s arrests were issued as part of the complaint.

China is about to Own Uganda

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It is called debt-trapping by China. China has been trapping small desperate nations for several years and few are paying attention. Imperialism? Yes on a global scale.

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Uganda is about to default to China. 39% of the debt in Uganda is owed to China. It could be that beyond Uganda, Tanzania, Ethopia and Kenya could be the next victims to debt-trapping. China financed a $4 billion oil pipeline as part of the Belt and Road initiative. When this default suraces, China will own the strategic sites that connects Beijing to the Persian Gulf. Railways are an essential part of the required transportation channels.

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African Stand reported in December last year that the Kenyan government risks losing the lucrative Mombasa port to China if the country fails to repay huge loans advanced by Chinese lenders, but both Chinese and Kenyan officials have dismissed that the port’s ownership is at risk.

Others think the Chinese government is in some ways gangsters, taking over mines all over Africa, sending thousands of Chinese workers, destroy the environment, bring the minerals such as copper, sink, gold, silver, diamonds etc home, and make deals with corrupt politicians to plunder the countries.

“The case is one of the examples of China’s ambitious use of loans and aid to gain influence around the world and of its willingness to play hardball to collect,” says the New York Times on December 12, 2017.

At a time in Somalia when local fishermen are struggling to compete with foreign vessels that are depleting fishing stocks, the government has granted 31 fishing licenses to China.

But Uganda’s auditor-general warned in a report released this month that public debt from June 2017 to 2018 had increased from $9.1 billion to $11.1 billion.

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The report — without naming China — warned that conditions placed on major loans were a threat to Uganda’s sovereign assets.

It said that in some loans, Uganda had agreed to waive sovereignty over properties if it defaults on the debt — a possibility that Kasaija rejected.

“China taking over assets? … in Uganda, I have told you, as long as some of us are still in charge, unless there is really a catastrophe, and which I don’t see at all, that will make this economy going behind. So, … I’m not worried about China taking assets. They can do it elsewhere, I don’t know. But here, I don’t think it will come,” he said.

n December 2017, the Sri Lankan government handed its Hambantota port to China for a lease period of 99 years after failing to show commitment in the payment of billions of dollars in loans.

Also in September 2018, African Stand reported that China was taking over Zambia’s state power company and Kenneth Kaunda International Airport over unpaid debt rippled across Africa, despite government denials.

China’s Exim Bank has funded about 85 percent of two major Ugandan power projects — Karuma and Isimba dams. It also financed and built Kampala’s $476 million Entebbe Express Highway to the airport, which cut driving time by more than half. China’s National Offshore Oil Corporation, France’s Total, and Britain’s Tullow Oil co-own Uganda’s western oil fields, set to be tapped by 2021.

Still Defiant, Iran Doubles Uranium Centrifuges

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RFERL: The UN’s nuclear watchdog has issued a report saying Iran is preparing for possible major expansion of uranium enrichment in a fortified underground facility.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) quarterly report also says “extensive activities” — a reference to suspected sanitization efforts — at Iran’s Parchin military complex will hamper its investigation of possible past nuclear weapons development work there, if inspectors are granted access.

Nuclear Deal Silent on Iran’s Parchin Military Plant ... Parchin

The report says Iran has produced 189 kilograms of higher-grade enriched uranium since 2010 — up from 145 kilograms since May, when the previous quarterly report was issued.

The IAEA reported last year that Iran placed “a large explosives containment vessel” in Parchin in 2000 and constructed a building around it.

The facilities were designed to contain the detonation of up to 70 kilograms of high explosives — something the IAEA called “relevant to the development of an explosive nuclear device.”

Since that report, the IAEA has sought to send inspectors to the site of the suspected building but have been denied access by Iran to that part of the military base.

In recent months, the agency also has obtained information that indicates Iran has been busy cleaning up the suspected site, including tearing down some buildings and removing soil.

The last effort by the IAEA to convince Iran to let inspectors visit the site — where Iran denies clean-up activities are taking place — broke down in June when Tehran accused the agency of acting like an “intelligence organization.”

More Centrifuges At Fordow Site

ISIS NuclearIran › Iran In Brief Fordow

The IAEA’s latest report also says the number of enrichment centrifuges at Fordow has more than doubled to 2,140 from 1,064 in May.

The Fordow facility is extremely controversial for two reasons.

First, it is dug into a mountain, making it difficult to bomb — suggesting it could have a military purpose.

Secondly, the centrifuges at the facility are being used to enrich uranium to purities of 20 percent — far higher than the 4 percent needed for fuel for commercial reactors.

Iran has said it is producing the 20 percent-enriched fuel for use in research reactors to produce medical isotopes.

But arms-control experts worry that creating large stockpiles of 20 percent-enriched uranium makes it much easier for Iran to later complete the jump to 90 percent-enriched uranium needed for nuclear bombs.

In Washington, the White House said it was closely studying the fresh IAEA report.

In Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, denied his country is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, adding Iran will “never abandon its right for the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”

In what appears to be a sign of the IAEA’s growing concern over Iran’s nuclear activities, the agency this week revealed it was creating a special Iran “task force.”

The task force is to scrutinize Tehran’s nuclear program and its compliance with UN resolutions — including those demanding a suspension of uranium enrichment.

Iran has denied any interest in nuclear arms.

Meanwhile, Congresswoman Liz Cheney is introducing legislation to fully terminate all of the Iran nuclear deal including the remaining sanctions waivers.

Yet, it seems that Turkey, a NATO member and in major dispute with the United States over Syria has not only defied NATO rules and the United States but has fully allied with Russia but for sure now as well Iran.

FDD: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announced yesterday that it will sell its 10 percent stake in the Istanbul stock exchange after Turkey named as its CEO a Turkish banker convicted in U.S. court for his role in a multi-billion dollar scheme to evade Washington’s sanctions on Iran. Ankara’s move to reward a sanctions buster further strengthens the argument that Turkey has become a permissive jurisdiction for illicit finance.

Turkey’s sovereign wealth fund offered today to buy EBRD’s shares, which would increase the fund’s stake in the stock exchange to over 90 percent. EBRD’s exit will mean the departure of Borsa Istanbul’s only major foreign stakeholder at a critical moment in Turkey’s relations with its western allies. Ankara’s military operation in northeast Syria targeting the Syrian Democratic Forces – Washington’s key partner in the fight against the Islamic State – has drawn sweeping condemnation from the international community.

Five days after Ankara launched its Syria incursion, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on three Turkish officials and Turkey’s ministries of energy and defense. That same week, the Southern District of New York filed an indictment charging Halkbank, a Turkish public lender, for its role in the multi-billion dollar gas-for-gold scheme to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran. Halkbank’s deputy general manager, Mehmet Hakan Atilla, in 2018 received a sentence of 32 months for his role in the affair. At the time of Atilla’s sentencing, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the trial as a political attack on his government.

Atilla returned to Turkey in July after serving his U.S. sentence. Last week, just days after U.S. federal prosecutors indicted Halkbank, Turkish Finance and Treasury Minister Berat Albayrak, who is also Erdogan’s son-in-law, named Atilla as CEO of the Istanbul stock exchange.

Atilla’s promotion is part of a string of appointments that showcase Erdogan’s policy of rehabilitating Iran sanctions busters and rewarding corrupt officials who further his personal ambitions. In September, Erdogan appointed former Minister for European Union Affairs Egemen Bagis as Turkey’s ambassador to Prague. Bagis had resigned from the ministry after a 2013 corruption scandal implicated him in accepting bribes related to the gas-for-gold scheme run through Halkbank.

Members of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) who dare criticize his policy of rehabilitating sanctions evaders continue to draw the Turkish president’s wrath. After publicly pronouncing strong opposition to Bagis’s ambassadorial appointment and other party policies, a senior AKP lawmaker, Mustafa Yeneroglu, resigned from the party yesterday after Erdogan commanded him to step down.

Another minister implicated in taking bribes as part of the Halkbank scheme, Zafer Caglayan, who served as minister of Economy in 2013 before resigning due to corruption allegations, has returned to political life as an AKP delegate from the Turkish city of Mersin. Caglayan is best known for accepting bribes of cash and jewelry worth tens of millions of dollars.

Erdogan’s rehabilitation of sanctions evaders continues to hurt Turkey’s image, economy, and investment climate. Ankara’s apparent disregard for U.S. sanctions, including those targeting Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, does not bode well for Washington or other NATO allies. Yet so far, President Donald Trump has shielded Erdogan from U.S. sanctions, the most recent of which he lifted after only nine days. In contrast, a biting sanctions bill focused on Turkey passed the House 403 to 16 on Tuesday. Like Congress, Trump should communicate to his Turkish counterpart that his policy of evading sanctions and rewarding sanctions busters could have dire consequences.