Turkey’s Money-Laundering Scandal Would Destroy any Normal Presidency
Except Trump’s, it seems.
Halkbank isn’t a name you’re familiar with. Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, however, is very familiar.
According to the Department of Justice, in a release on October 15th, 2019, Halkbank was charged with a six-count indictment on fraud, money laundering, and sanctions offenses. It was a case involving billions of dollars to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran.
Three years prior to the Justice Department, the United States was still gathering evidence and documents for the financial crimes involved. It was in 2016 when Erdogan asked Vice President Joe Biden to dismiss the findings and drop the case altogether.
The following morning, Biden had addressed reporters:
“I suspect it’s hard for people to understand that as powerful as my country is, as powerful as Barack Obama is as president, he has no authority under our Constitution to extradite anyone. Only a federal court can do that. Nobody else can do that. If the president were to take this into his own hands, what would happen would be he would be impeached for violating the separation of powers.”
And that’s the line between Trump and virtually any other president. Obama would have been “impeached for violating the separation of powers.”
Under a Trump presidency, ignoring law and striking down cases is just another week of his version of law and order. In fact, Erdogan recruited Trump’s top administration officials into his corruption scheme.
In fact, many have declared Trump to be unfit for the presidency on his international dealings and businesses alone. Specifically, his Trump Towers in Istanbul and his long-time transaction history of business dealings with Ankara.
The conflict of interest has been apparent for some time. Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned from his post shortly after Trump announced that the U.S. troops would be withdrawing from Syria, abandoning the Kurds to be exterminated by Erdogan’s troops.
Mattis, a retired four-star general, told The Atlantic:
“I had no choice but to leave. That’s why (my resignation) letter is in the…
