OPINION – Why is there no Whistleblower in the case of President Trump’s October 6, phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan? Who was on the line with Trump?
Anonymous Pentagon sources last Tuesday said Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Milley were on the line, according to the AP and Reuters. However, on Friday, when Esper and Milley had a press conference with Pentagon reporters, no one asked them about listening to the Trump/Erdogan call. Remember, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delayed acknowledging he was on Trump’s July 25 conversation with Ukraine President Vollodymyr Zelensky.
Meanwhile, where are the Members of Congress demanding the word-for-word memo of the Trump/Erdogan call? If there is such a memo, I am sure it was quickly put into that top security, computer system housing the Trump/Zelensky call.
In his call with the Turkish president, Trump “went off script,” according to one anonymous account. By deciding to remove fewer than 50 American Special Forces on the Syrian-Turkish border, Trump opened the way for Erdogan to go ahead with the Turkish military’s invasion into northern Syria. The Turks’ mission, with their Syrian Arab allies, was and is to destroy Kurdish militants in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who have been America’s key allies against ISIS in Syria, carrying the bulk of the fighting – and the dying.
However, with the ISIS terrorist Caliphate collapsed, Erdogan has claimed those same Kurdish militants are a threat to his increasingly dictatorial regime. Erdogan’s invasion has wiped away months of U.S. led negotiations under an August 7 agreement to create a safe zone in northern Syria with joint U.S.-Turkish patrols along the border.
Erdogan was unhappy with continued U.S. arming of the Kurdish military units, who together were still carrying on operations against small, surviving, ISIS units. The Turkish president also wanted to resettle one million or more Syrian Arab refugees who had fled into his country in the proposed safe zone inside Syria with Turkish troops to protect them – a plan unacceptable to the Kurds who have controlled that area.
In his July call with Ukraine’s president, Trump was obviously seeking a questionable “favor” in the form of political dirt on the Bidens. With Erdogan, it was Trump who was offering a favor to the Turkish president, another strongman he has said he admires.
Why?
In an October 12 editorial, the Wall Street Journal speculated Trump “made this concession to Turkey as part of a strategy to win Mr. Erdogan’s support against Iran.” Trump, himself, claimed it was part of his 2016 campaign pledge to get out of “endless wars.” But as Peggy Noonan wrote in her Saturday, Wall Street Journal column, “There is too much craziness to the decision, both in its substance and how it was made.”
Some of that can be seen in the Turkish President’s office’s readout of the Trump call. It focused not on Turkey’s forces invading Syria but on Trump’s invitation to Erdogan to meet in Washington next month. Erdogan, himself told reporters they would discuss plans for a "safe zone" in Syria, and added that he hoped to resolve a dispute over F-35 fighter jets during his visit.
Did the F-35 issue come up during the Trump/Erdogan phone call? There was an unconfirmed news report that Trump offered to keep Turkey in the F-35 program - being halted because Ankara bought the Russian S-400 missile defense system - if the Turks called off their Syrian invasion.
Trump has shown at times a respect for Erdogan that mirrors somewhat his awe of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
In May 2017, when Erdogan visited Trump for a White House visit, Turkish security personnel attacked protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence. Trump never condemned the attacks and months later praised Erdogan as “a very good friend” with “very high marks” for the way he runs Turkey.
When the Russian S-400 parts began arriving in Turkey over U.S. objections and Republican legislators wanted to impose sanctions, Trump held a White House meeting aimed at delaying economic sanctions against Ankara. Those sanctions have not been implemented.
Questions remain about the October 6, phone call. What was its purpose? What preparations preceded it? What was actually said?
Trump has said he had told Erdogan in the phone call that Turkey could suffer the "wrath of an extremely decimated economy" if it acted in Syria in a way that was not humane.
Trump later tweeted on October 7, after the invasion of Syria had begun, that “if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!).”
In Turkey, on October 7, Erdogan’s office of the presidency focused on Trump’s invitation during the phone call for the two leaders to meet in Washington. In Ankara that same day, Erdogan told reporters he planned to visit Washington to meet with Trump in the first half of November. He said the two leaders would discuss plans for a "safe zone" in Syria, and added that he hoped to resolve a dispute over F-35 fighter jets during his visit.
The call has had other ramifications. One is the obvious effect on allies and their expectations of U.S. actions in the future while Trump is president.
On October 7, the day after the surprise announcement of the withdrawal of American Special Forces from the Turkish-Syria border, Trump met with Esper, Milley and top Pentagon military leaders in the White House cabinet room. At that time, Trump told reporters, “We help a lot of nations, and they are not — they’re not sometimes there for us. So we want to help the ones that — that we want, and we want to help the ones that deserve the help.”
One group that would fit into the category that should deserve help because they were “there for us,” would seem to be the Syrian Kurdish SDF group that bore the brunt of deaths and casualties in the fight alongside American forces against ISIS in Syria.
However, on October 12, with the Turkish invasion expanding in northern Syria, Trump said of the Kurds, “Don’t forget: they are fighting for their land. They haven’t helped us fight for our land, they’re fighting for their land and that’s good, but we’ve helped them.”
Trump made those comments about the Kurds during an appearance last Saturday at the Value Voter Summit, an annual conference of religious conservatives. Days earlier, some of his top evangelical supporters criticized his removal of U.S. troops on the Syrian-Turkish border. Ever mindful of his base, Trump told the conference he had released $50 million in stabilization assistance that would be given to groups supporting religious and ethnic minorities who are victims of the Syrian fighting.
As the New York Times reported, “Syria has not been a direct recipient of American aid in years, and [Trump’s] announcement said little about how it would be spent.”
Supplying the $50 million to sooth evangelicals fits in with another campaign element Trump frequently mentions justifying his Syria decision — it relates to fulfilling a 2016 campaign pledge to stop policing the world and “bringing our soldiers back home.”
Finally, there is the question of how much Trump’s personal financial interests in Turkey affected his judgment.
During an interview back in 2015, Trump admitted, "I have a little conflict of interest 'cause I have a major, major building in Istanbul..It's a tremendously successful job. It's called Trump Towers—two towers, instead of one, not the usual one, it’s two." Actually, the buildings are owned by Aydin Dogan, a Turkish billionaire with multiple holdings including a major newspaper.
The Trump organization licenses the use of Trump’s name on the two buildings, one with apartments the other with offices. It was a deal that initially brought in some $10 million, plus annual fees in the years since. Income from Trump Marks Istanbul II LLC, which manages the licensing deal in Turkey, dropped below $1 million in 2018, according to Trump’s own filing.
Erdogan appeared at the Istanbul Trump Towers opening in April 2012, for which Ivanka Trump personally thanked him via Twitter—"Thank you Prime Minister Erdogan for joining us yesterday to celebrate the launch of #Trump Towers Istanbul!"
In 2013, Trump also invested in Dorya International, a Turkish luxury furniture maker which sells under the name of the Trump Home Collection. On its website, Dorya, which sells around the world, claims specifically to have supplied furniture to Erdogan’s presidency residences and to many Turkish Embassies including the one in Washington.
Will Trump’s threatened economic sanctions, if they occur, have any direct effect on his Turkish investments?
Meanwhile, the House impeachment investigation remains focused on his Ukraine phone call.
It is ironic that possible impeachment of a president seems most understandable and valid when a form of corruption is involved. It seems much harder to consider impeachment where a president’s obvious, faulty, imperious, misjudgment results in great harm to the U.S. and to innocent people abroad.
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