Vanity Fair: Turks Boasted of Payments to Hastert
19 Corporate Crime Reporter 32(1), August 3, 2005
Corporate Crime Reporter, D.C.
Aug 3 2005
Turkish officials boasted of giving “tens of thousands of dollars in
surreptious payments” to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois)
in exchange for political favors.
That allegation is contained a profile of Federal Bureau of
Investigations (FBI) whistleblower Sibel Edmonds in the current issue
of Vanity Fair magazine.
The article, “An Inconvenient Patriot,” by British writer David Rose,
reports that Edmonds was asked to listen to wiretaps as part of what
appeared to be an FBI public corruption probe into bribes paid to
members of Congress – both Democrat and Republican.
Rose, citing “some of the wiretaps,” reports that “the FBI’s targets
had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert’s
campaign funds in small checks.”
The article notes that under Federal Election Commission rules,
“donations of less than $200 are not required to be itemized in
public filings.”
The article reports that Edmonds has given confidential testimony
on several occasions – to congressional staffers, to the Inspector
General, and to staff from the 9/11 commission.
“Edmonds reportedly added that the recordings also contained
repeated references to Hastert’s flip-flop, in the fall of 2000” to
“the continuing campaign to have Congress designate the killings of
Armenians in Turkey between 1915 and 1923 as genocide.”
According to the Vanity Fair article, the resolution never went
anywhere until August 2000 when Hastert announced he was supporting
it – in an effort to win over his district’s large Armenian community.
According to the article, the resolution passed the House International
Relations Committee by a large majority “thanks to Hastert.”
“Then, on October 19, minutes before the full House vote, Hastert
withdrew it,” the article reports.
Hastert said at the time that he withdrew it because of a letter he
received from President Bill Clinton that the bill would harm U.S.
interests.
And while the Vanity Fair article reports that “there is no evidence
that any payment was ever made to Hastert or to his campaigns,”
it also reports that “a senior official at the Turkish Consulate is
said to have claimed in one recording that the price for Hastert to
withdraw the resolution would have been at least $500,000.”
The article reports that Edmonds testified that she heard about the
payments when listening to “Turkish wiretap targets.”
In one wiretapped conversation, a Turkish official spoke to a State
Department staffer.
“They agreed that the State Department staffer would send a
representative at an appointed time to the American-Turkish Council
office, at 1111 14th Street, N.W. where he would be given $7,000 in
cash,” the article reports.
Another call Edmonds heard allegedly discussed a payment to a
Pentagon official “who seemed to be involved in weapons-procurement
negotiations,” according to the article.
Hastert’s spokesman could not be reached for comment.
But he told Vanity Fair that Hastert is “unaware of Turkish interests
making donations” and his staff has “not seen any pattern of donors
with foreign names.”