By Hakan Copur and Esra Kaymak Avci
WASHINGTON (AA) – The U.S. network of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) donated about $2 million to the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, a source close to the Democratic Party told Anadolu Agency.
The source wanted to remain anonymous but according to his figures FETO's funding constituted 0.3 percent of the $600 million Clinton received in campaign contributions.
Large financial donations are made in American politics to buy access to and influence with political parties and politicians. Like any other lobbying group, FETO used money to try to advance its own political agenda.
The exact tally of FETO's donations to Clinton is unclear, the source said, because the group worked around campaign contribution laws by using different names.
FETO's ringleader, Fetullah Gulen, is accused by Anakara of being the mastermind behind the failed July 15 coup attempt in Turkey. The source did not provide information about whether FETO made donations to Clinton after the putsch attempt or if the group also contributed to the campaign of Donald Trump.
One of the leading donors to the Clinton camp was a founder of FETO's New York-based Turkish Cultural Center, or TCC, who also heads the Turkish American Business Improvement & Development Center (TABID), according to the source.
Gokhan Ozkok's name was mentioned in a batch of Clinton's emails that were released as part of a federal investigation into her use of a private server while she served as Secretary of State.
Ozkok sent Clinton's deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin, "Gulen's prayers" for the secretary who had broken her elbow in 2009. In the same email he asked for help with connecting one of his allies to President Barack Obama. It is unclear if a connection was made.
Ozkok, who co-chaired the 'Ready for Hillary PAC', also donated $18,000 to the organization’s financial committee at different times. His name was also among funders who donated between $500,000 and $1 million to the Clinton Global Initiative, which is part of the Clinton Foundation. The exact timing of the donations to the foundation is unknown.
Ready for Hillary PAC is an independent expenditure-only committee that collected money from several corporations and individuals that were preparing for Clinton's presidential campaign, according to its website.
Similarly, the president of the TCC, Recep Ozkan, gave $1 million, the maximum amout allowed by law, to the Clinton Foundation in 2015. The previous year Ozkan donated $20,000 to the 'Ready for Hillary PAC's financial committee and an additional $5,000 to the same committee. He was also one of the funders to the Clinton Global Initiative and made another contribution of between $500,000 and $1 million.
The president of FETO's Washington DC-based Turkic-American Alliance (TAA), Faruk Taban, has also played a critical role in securing political relationships for FETO, according to the source.
He did not provide specifics about Taban’s role but said he tried to build relationships between FETO and Clinton to strengthen ties in case FETO needed a favor in the future when she was in a more powerful position. To lobby and to have a voice through her, FETO aimed to impose its political views through her, according to the source.
Murat Guzel, a U.S.-based Turkish businessman who is in charge of the Democrat Party's National Ethnic Coordinating Council, told Anadolu Agency the relationship between FETO and the former first lady has a long history, dating to 2000 and, the terror group believed in a Clinton presidency from the beginning.
According to Guzel, FETO benefited from the years of sour relations between Turkey and Israel as Clinton was surrounded by several Jewish groups that FETO used "to lobby against Turkey."
It remains why or how the Clinton-FETO relationship began in the year Clinton ran for her first term as a U.S. senator from New York.
A leading fugitive member of FETO, Adil Oksuz, created a "fictitious" company named Harmony Enterprises in 2014 and made a $5,000 donation to the "Ready for Hillary PAC" on June 27 of that year, according to a report by USA Today newspaper. Oksus escaped after the putsch attempt and is currently on Turkey’s wanted list.
The newspaper report said Harmony’s website claims it was a paper manufacturing business although the business address listed on the state corporate records belongs to a used car lot in Lodi, New Jersey.
Another FETO entity that made a donation the same day as Oksuz, was the Under 70 Auto Sales business, also in Lodi, and it also used an address for a car lot. Owner Abdulhadi Yildirim donated $7,500 to the PAC.
Two other auto sale companies in the same region also made separate donations to Clinton in the total amount of 12,500 but the timing of the donations is unknown.