Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who was fired in February after lying about his contacts with the Russian government, has formally registered with the Justice Department as a “foreign agent” and admitted that he had lobbied on behalf of the Turkish government as recently as November 2016.
As the Associated Press reports, Flynn’s lawyer filed paperwork with the Justice Department Tuesday disclosing that the retired Army general had done lobbying work between August and November 2016 that “could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey.” According to the filing, Flynn’s company, Flynn Intel Group Inc., was paid at least $530,000 for the work.
Flynn’s contract ended on November 15, just three days before Trump appointed him national security adviser.
- - - - - - -
Suspicions about Flynn’s ties to the Turkish government were sparked by an op-ed he wrote in the Hill on November 8 that basically read like a bald piece of Turkish propaganda. In it, Flynn, who had been Trump’s top national security aide during the campaign, slammed the outgoing Obama administration — and the US media more broadly — for not being supportive enough of Turkey’s autocratic leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
