Ex-CIA Director: Mike Flynn and Turkish Officials Discussed Removal of Erdogan Foe From U.S.

The cleric has been accused by turkey of orchestrating last summer’s failed military coup

Mr. Woolsey told The Wall Street Journal he arrived at the meeting in New York on Sept. 19 in the middle of the discussion and found the topic startling and the actions being discussed possibly illegal.

 The Turkish ministers were interested in open-ended thinking on the subject, and the ideas were raised hypothetically, said the people who were briefed. The ministers in attendance included the son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the country’s foreign minister, foreign-lobbying disclosure documents show.

.. Mr. Woolsey said the idea was “a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away.”

.. The filing said his firm’s fee, $530,000, wasn’t paid by the government but by Inovo BV, a Dutch firm owned by a Turkish businessman, Ekim Alptekin.

.. Mr. Erdogan has been trying for years to undermine Mr. Gulen, a onetime ally whom Turkey has now branded as a terrorist leader.

.. “It seemed to be naive,” Mr. Woolsey said about the discussion. “I didn’t put a lot of credibility in it. This is a country of legal process and a Constitution, and you don’t send out folks to haul somebody overseas.”

.. Mr. Woolsey said he also informed the U.S. government by notifying Vice President Joe Biden through a mutual friend.

.. Mr. Biden felt the Gulen matter should be handled through the courts.

.. “Gen. Flynn did discuss the Flynn Intel Group’s work for Inovo that included gathering information that could lead to a legal case against Mr. Gulen.”

.. Inovo hired Mr. Flynn on behalf of an Israeli company seeking to export natural gas to Turkey