Federal investigators are now interested in the role Bijan Kian, co-founder of ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn’s consulting firm, played in their lobbying work, Reuters reported Tuesday.
The report was based on information from an anonymous individual recently interviewed by the FBI, who said that agents from the criminal division asked as many questions about Kian and his involvement with a lobbying contract carried out by the firm that primarily benefitted the Turkish government as they did about Flynn.
Kian was responsible for securing and carrying out that work for Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin, as Reuters and the Associated Press have reported. It netted Flynn Intel Group $530,000. Two other sources with knowledge of the probe told Reuters that investigators were looking at whether the payments Flynn and his firm received from foreign clients were lawful and whether they made the proper disclosures with the federal government to perform this work.
Both men retroactively registered as foreign agents for their Turkey lobbying, which involved producing negative public relations materials about an exiled cleric living in Pennsylvania whom Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames for a failed coup attempt last summer.
While this contract, and other payments Flynn received from Russian companies, brought President Donald Trump’s ousted national security adviser to the attention of federal and congressional investigators, as well as the press, Kian has mostly avoided the spotlight until this month.
TPM previously reported that a Washington, D.C. charity Kian co-founded, the Nowruz Commission, served as one point of contact for him, Flynn, and their Turkish client, Ekim Alptekin, who is a member of the board.
Alptekin has told news outlets that he came to know Kian while the Iranian-American businessman was promoting U.S. business interests abroad while serving on the Export-Import bank.
It is not clear if Kian is himself a target of the criminal federal investigation or if investigators are researching him to get a better sense of Flynn Intel Group’s operations, according to the report. He has retained a lawyer, Robert Trout, to handle the burgeoning probe.
Yup, it’s not “collusion” or “election hacking” that’s going to get these guys. It’s going to be garden-variety financial crimes, and I’ll bet there are plenty of them out there, involving almost everyone Trump has ever been involved with.
Laundering, Money. There will be some of that, Manafort high on that list.
In fact, that’s the one that could actually get Trump himself. Russian money flowing into his little empire, a lot of it coming from god-knows-where.
Big article on Kian that I read a month ago. Need to dust it off. I believe Kislyak was at the same ball where this photo was taken. Russia and Turkey had a common interest in Syria: Keeping ISIS afloat. Turkey wants ISIS around to keep the Kurds at bay. Russia wants ISIS around to keep moderate Sunni political parties at bay.
A Casino would be a great place to launder money. Even if Trump knew nothing about it (or knew and claims not to have known), he looks like a fool for having it happen under his nose.
I’ve mentioned this before, but Manafort is under local investigation here in NYC for buying lots of real estate with cash from overseas shell companies. It appears he also then took out mortgages on some of them. This while communicating with Russian mobsters known for money laundering. But of course it’s all a coincidence not worthy of investigation…