Mike Flynn secretly met Turkish officials to plan illegal ‘dead of night’ extradition of fugitive cleric
Former CIA Director James Woolsey said that he attended a secret meeting in September with ousted Trump national security adviser Adm. Mike Flynn to plan a covert operation to “whisk away” a fugitive cleric and hand him over to Turkey’s authoritarian government.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Woolsey and other people present at the meeting confirmed that Flynn was coordinating with officials from the cabinet of right-wing Turkish Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan in anticipation of extraditing Fethullah Gulen back to Turkey should Trump win the presidency.
The “dead of night” operation was intended to circumvent normal U.S. extradition laws, Woolsey said. The meeting took place on Sep. 19, and Woolsey said he arrived late only to be startled and alarmed that the discussion was treading into potentially illegal territory.
The plan, according to Woolsey, was “a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away.” Gulen is wanted in Turkey for allegedly aiding last summer’s failed military coup against the Erdogan regime.
“It isn’t known who raised the idea or what Mr. Flynn concluded about it,” said the Journal.
Flynn was forced to step down from Trump’s cabinet when it came to light that he lied to Vice President Mike Pence and the public about his communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
On Saturday, The Daily Beast documented the recent history of use of force in the Buffalo Police Department, which is reeling from controversy as two officers face assault charges for shoving a 75-year-old protester to the ground.
"As shocking as this all may be to outsiders, the shoving of demonstrator Martin Gugino and the defiant response of officers to an effort to discipline two of their own is indicative of the state of police affairs in Buffalo," wrote Jim Heaney. "Has been for a long time, not that you have to go back too far to find other episodes of brutality that have been captured on video."
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Internet disgusted after Buffalo first responders cheer cops charged with assaulting 75-year-old protester
Commenters on Twitter expressed both contempt and disgust for Buffalo firefighters and police officers who turned out in front of Buffalo City Court to support two suspended police officers with applause and cheering.
Moments after officers Aaron Torglaski and Robert McCabe were charged with second-degree assault and then released without having to post bail, they were greeted as heroes outside the courthouse.
After a video was posted showing the celebration, commenters on Twitter vented at cops and firefighters for defending the two officers who assaulted the 75-year-old man who had to be rushed to a hospital after they shoved him to the ground where he sustained a head injury.
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Donald Trump’s lurch toward fascism is backfiring spectacularly
Welcome to another edition of What Fresh Hell?, Raw Story’s roundup of news items that might have become controversies under another regime, but got buried – or were at least under-appreciated – due to the daily firehose of political pratfalls, unhinged tweet storms and other sundry embarrassments coming out of the current White House.
During the 2016 campaign, as Donald Trump railed against "Mexican rapists" and other "criminal aliens," pollsters found that the share of Americans who said that immigrants worked hard and made a positive contribution to our society increased significantly, and noticed a similar decline in the share who said they take citizens' jobs and burden our social safety net. After Trump was elected and began pursuing his Muslim ban, the share of respondents who held a positive view of Islam also increased pretty dramatically. I'm not aware of any polling of the general public about transgender troops serving in the military before Trump decided to discharge them, but Gallup found that 71 percent of respondents opposed his position after he did.
57 Buffalo cops resign to support suspended officers who pushed down elderly man
’Let ‘em go’: Ex-police commissioner lays into Buffalo cops who quit Emergency Response Team
Derek Chauvin accused of illegally voting in Florida — where he was allegedly registered as a Republican
Trump is ‘a soulless man with a broken mind’: George Conway calls out his wife’s boss in scathing op-ed
BUSTED: Police arrest Anthony Brennan III on assault charges after viral video of attack on teenage protesters
Buffalo has a long history of protecting cops from criminal charges: report
Internet disgusted after Buffalo first responders cheer cops charged with assaulting 75-year-old protester
Donald Trump’s lurch toward fascism is backfiring spectacularly
Judge blocking release of Jeffrey Epstein records has ties to officials linked to Epstein: report
WATCH: Buffalo cops and firefighters cheer officers charged with assault as they leave the courthouse
WATCH: Buffalo cops and firefighters cheer officers charged with assault as they leave the courthouse
Lindsey Graham leveled by Jim Clyburn for ‘out of touch’ comments on police brutalizing African-Americans
‘Bye Felicia’: Sheriff says Buffalo cops resigning from emergency unit should be booted from the force
Jim Cramer: Coronavirus pandemic triggered ‘one of the greatest wealth transfers in history’
