Mike Flynn Met With Turkish Officials To Illegally Extradite Turkish Cleric: WSJ

While he was serving as adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump, Mike Flynn met with Turkish officials to discuss the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, whom the Turkish government has held responsible for orchestrating the failed coup in July in Turkey, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Ex-CIA director James Woolsey told WSJ that on Sept. 19 he sat in on the meeting that took place between Flynn and a number of Turkish government officials, including Berat Albayrak, the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources (and President Erdogan's son-in-law) and Mevlut Cavusoglu, minister of Foreign Affairs. On the agenda was the unlawful extradition of the Turkish cleric Gulen, whom the Turkish government tried to extradite through diplomatic methods to no avail.

Woolsey described it as "a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away."

Gulen, a Turkish cleric with a worldwide network of schools and followers, has been living in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania since 1999 and holds a green card, which allows him to live in the U.S.

Sean Spicer, spokesman for the White House, said Trump had no knowledge of Flynn's dealings with the Turkish government.

Flynn resigned last month due to his misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his dealings with the Russian government.

You can read the full story by the Wall Street Journal here.

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images