WASHINGTON—Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds testified under
oath Saturday about shocking details connecting the Turkish
government to an intricate network of individuals and
organization that bribed, persuaded, and – at least in one case
– blackmailed US lawmakers and corrupted American government
officials. Corruption. Espionage. Bribery. All to ensure that
the US does not recognize the Armenian Genocide ever again.
For years, the Turkish government and its
representatives here in the United States have stopped at
nothing to fight the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. This
far-reaching campaign of denial and cover-up stretches from
well-funded efforts to block education about the Armenian
genocide to ensuring that American media does not address or
acknowledge the Armenian genocide as historic fact.
The Turkish government and Turkish lobby have
for years pressured local, state and the federal governments and
American and global media to rewrite American, Ottoman, Turkish,
and world histories so that they exclude the Armenian genocide.
But only now are we beginning to understand
exactly how far the government of Turkey, and its agents and
proxies, are willing to go to undermine the Armenian case.
The FBI hired linguist Sibel Edmonds as a
translator after the Sept. 11 attacks. But she was fired less
than a year later after reporting the illegal activities of
Turkish citizens being covered up by her bosses. Edmonds has
been bravely battling the legal system for years for the
opportunity to tell her story. On Saturday, Edmonds was able to
speak freely thanks to David Krikorian, an American Armenian who
is running for a congressional seat in Ohio.
“Ms. Edmonds is a very credible witness,”
said Krikorian, “and she has direct information pertaining to
how when she was a member of the Department of Justice, of the
FBI, where she uncovered relationships between the government of
Turkey and US officials, where the government of Turkey was
pushing its agenda on US officials and doing so, perhaps, and
we’ll find out today, in what people many people believe to be
an illegal way.”
David Krikorian is the democratic candidate
in the 2010 elections for Ohio’s 2nd congressional district. The
seat is now held by Republican Jean Schmidt, who was the largest
recipient of money from the Turkish lobby in the 2008 elections.
The congresswoman also fought the Armenian Genocide resolution.
When her challenger, David Krikorian, pointed
out that she was receiving blood money from Turks for helping
deny the Armenian Genocide, the congresswoman complained to the
Ohio Elections Commission. Representing the congresswoman and
the Turkish American Defense Fund at the deposition on Saturday,
August 8, was non-other than attorney and longtime voice of the
Turkish lobby Bruce Fein.
Krikorian says the Turkish lobby’s interest
in what Sibel Edmonds would say is because this FBI whistle
blower is linking bribes accepted by lawmakers to the Turkish
campaign of denial.
“I think they’re concerned, because this
exposes their campaign of denial regarding the Armenian
Genocide,” said Krikorian, “and how they’ve been able to buy off
certain members of the US congress in support of the Turkish
government’s position on this issue. So they have an interest.”
Bruce Fein claims Edmond’s testimony on
Saturday has no relevance in congresswoman Schmidt’s case
against David Krikorian.
We asked Bruce Fein about David Krikorian’s
first amendment rights of freedom of speech and the right to
talk openly about his opponent’s opposition to the Armenian
Genocide resolution.
“We totally support his right to state
anything he wants about the Armenian Genocide,” said Fein. “What
you’re not entitled to do under the first amendment as
interpreted by the US Supreme Court, who we think is the
authoritative interpreter, is knowingly state lies, and what we
have alleged, and what we have to prove, and we understand and
accept it, is that Krikorian knowingly and intentionally told
lies about Jean Schmidt including she received money from the
Turkish government, and we fully expect we will discharge that
burden and we agree that we ought to be able to. We must be
shouldered with that burden in order to protect free speech. We
don’t want close anybody’s mouth when it comes to arguing one
way or another about the Armenian Genocide.”
Fein and the Turkish Defense Fund are indeed
trying to stop Krikorian from speaking the truth. Congresswoman
Schmidt did receive huge sums of contributions from the Turkish
lobby. Sibel Edmonds says that same lobby bribed public
officials to enforce the Turkish agenda in the United States.
The government has tried to gag Edmonds and
has sent threatening letters to stop this type of talk about
corruption inside the FBI, the State Department, the Department
of Justice, and in the halls of Congress.
“I am able to talk about the kind of
information they used to retaliate against whistle-blowers, to
gag people, to issue states secrets privilege, or to use the
excuse of classification,” said Edmonds. “Nothing that has to do
with national security but to cover up criminal activities,
embarrassing information, and today that is happening, and this
is the biggest significance. It’s very significant. I believe
Mr. Krikorian is very brave and courageous person, to push this
and bring it to this point. He’s actually serving the interest
of the United States citizens and not only in Cincinnati, Ohio,
but everyone here in this country. So, we should be all thankful
to him for providing us with this opportunity.”
During the deposition on Saturday, Edmonds
talked in detail about scandalous bribes accepted by
then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and former lawmakers
Dick Gephardt and Stephen Solarz. She also spoke about the
blackmailing of another un-named member of congress — a married
woman with children, who was lured into a homosexual affair by a
female prostitute sent by the Turkish lobby. This congresswoman
was then blackmailed to abandon her support for the Armenian
Genocide resolution.
“It’s the Turkish government,” said Edmonds,
“but also other entities and layers of these operations and some
of these covert operations and the way they are done is
completely illegal. I was able to discuss those in detail, and
that information within the next couple of hours I hope will be
available to the public, and the public will get a chance to
decide for themselves and see what the government does to gag
and quash necessary information like this and stamp it as
classified. I think this may end up inflicting the best and the
worst damage to arbitrarily, criminally done classifications and
let’s hope that it does.”
Edmonds says the allegations she made in an
August 2005 Vanity Fair article were confirmed by the several
FBI agents and Department of Justice officials. The piece by
Vanity Fair reporter David Rose said that then-Speaker of the
House Dennis Hastert was the recipient of various bribes.
Edmonds says it is amazing that neither Dennis Hastert nor his
attorneys reacted to the article. Hastert did not issue a denial
to the allegations, but he resigned a year later. Now he is part
of the Turkish Government orchestrated network that Vanity Fair
says paid him the big bribes when he was the most powerful
member of the House of Representatives. The most recent Federal
filings show that Hastert, one of several registered foreign
agents for Turkey, now receives $35,000-a-month to push the
Turkish government’s agenda on Capitol Hill.
How deep do these corrupt Turkish operations
go? Vanity Fair reported that the FBI began investigating
Turkish citizens living in the US in the late 90s, and they
found evidence of attempts to bribe US officials. However, as
Sibel Edmonds says – the government has used the phrase “state
secrets” and security reasons to hold this information back from
the public and media.
The Ohio Election Commission’s Probable Cause
hearing is scheduled for Aug. 13th, and the final hearing in the
case against David Krikorian where all the evidence will be
heard is scheduled on Sept 3.
Brief Q&A With Bruce Fein
Q: Is this part of the series of cases you’re
opening up, whether it’s in Massachusetts or suing the Southern
Poverty Law Center as well to try to quash speech with regard to
the Armenian Genocide?
BF: No, what we are trying to do is promote
freedom of speech, because what’s been done is that other
organizations have accused various members who dispute their
version of history of criminal activity of compromising
scholarly integrity. It is they who are trying to suppress
freedom of speech by intimidating, harassing, and calling
criminal those individuals who happen to dispute their version
of history.
Q: Would you then also support Holocaust
denial entrance into the Massachusetts school system or pushing
other publications like the Southern Poverty Center’s
publication to talk about denial as well?
BF: What the Southern Poverty Law Center
alleged is that various academics are receiving money from the
government of Turkey to compromise their scholarship and we will
not accept accusations that are knowingly false of that sort,
period.
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