Charges against the two former associates, Bijan Kian and Ekim Alptekin, were unsealed Monday in an Alexandria, Virginia, courtroom. The two men were indicted last week as part of a conspiracy to violate federal lobbying rules and Alptekin also was charged with making false statements to FBI investigators.
The indictment is further evidence of a broad crackdown on unregistered foreign lobbying growing from the inquiry by Robert Mueller, the special counsel who has investigated foreign flows of money from Ukraine, Turkey and other countries designed to manipulate decision-making in Washington. Mueller referred the Turkey case back to prosecutors in Northern Virginia.
The indictment said that the two men sought to conceal that Turkey was directing the work, and that Cabinet-level Turkish officials approved the budget for the project and were given regular updates by Alptekin about the campaign’s progress. Flynn’s firm — Flynn Intel Group — received a total of $530,000 for its work.
“The defendants sought to discredit and delegitimize the Turkish citizen in the eyes of politicians and the public,” the indictment said.
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Bijan appeared in court Monday but was released after the hearing. His lawyer declined to comment. Prosecutors said that he faces up to 15 years in prison and Alptekin faces up to 35 years.
Alptekin’s current location is unknown.
The investigation into Turkish lobbying began in 2016 after Flynn — a former general and businessman who was advising Trump’s political campaign — wrote an op-ed for The Hill newspaper on Election Day attacking Fethullah Gulen, a cleric living in Pennsylvania whom the Turkish government has accused of helping instigate a failed coup.
Alptekin is a Turkish businessman close to Erdogan and helped finance the project.
When he pleaded guilty last December to lying to FBI agents working on the Russia investigation, Flynn admitted to prosecutors that he had repeatedly violated laws requiring firms to register their work on behalf of foreign clients.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.