PHILADELPHIA _ Former national security adviser Michael Flynn met with Turkish officials and took part in a discussion about whisking Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen from his home in the Poconos in Pennsylvania and returning him to Turkey, where the government blames him for inciting last year's failed but bloody coup.
The Sept. 19 meeting was described by former CIA director James Woolsey in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. Woolsey said the discussion involved the possibility of spiriting Gulen out of the country outside of legal extradition procedures. He couldn't recall whether it was Flynn himself who voiced the idea or someone else at the meeting.
"It was brainstorming about what would have been a pretty clear violation of the law," Woolsey told the newspaper.
The Turkish government has repeatedly called upon the U.S. to extradite Gulen, without success so far. A spokesman for Flynn said that Woolsey's description of the meeting was inaccurate and that there had been no discussion of removing Gulen from the country. Woolsey attended the meeting in his capacity as a member of an advisory board to the Flynn Intel Group, Flynn's consulting firm.
Flynn stepped down as national security adviser after less than a month in that role following disclosure in January that he had met with the Russian ambassador during the presidential campaign and had misled Vice President Mike Pence about the contact.
