“On March 5th, NewsMax correspondent John Gizzi asked Press Secretary Jen Psaki a seemingly innocuous question during the White House Daily Briefing that garnered very little attention.
(…) The reporter’s question referenced an article in the English language version (Duvar English) of the Turkish publication Gazete Duvar. The article recounts a recent interview Ekim Alptekin gave in Turkish on YouTube to veteran journalist Cüneyt Özdemir.
Ekim Alptekin (r) explains how he became acquainted with Gen. Flynn and how he went on to hire the Flynn Intel Group for private contract work for himself and not the government of Turkey. (Credit: YouTube)
In the interview, Alptekin reveals he has a longtime acquaintance with Joe Biden dating back to the early 2000’s. At the time, Alptekin was working for Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA) who was the Ranking Member of the U.S. House Foreign Relations Committee (called the International Relations Committee at the time). Alptekin has discussed his time working as a congressional staffer in prior interviews such as the one he gave to Michael Doran back in May 2020 when he first went public about his targeting by the Mueller Investigation.
In the interview with Özdemir, Alptekin explained he knew Joe Biden through his work in Congress when Biden was the Co-Chair of the counterpart Senate committee. [This is] an English translation from Ekim Alptekin’s Feb 2021 interview with Cüneyt Özdemir.
Cüneyt Özdemir: Mr. Ekim have you met Mr. Biden and the members of the Biden family?
Ekim Alptekin: Yes, I have.
Cüneyt Özdemir: How have you met them?
Ekim Alptekin: My immediate employer was a Democrat while I was working at the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 2002 and 2003. He was sort of the second committee co-chair, what we call the ranking member. Joe Biden was the senate side which is the counterparty. Joe Biden was the head of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, responsible for the Democrats. They used to meet up three or four times a week. We, as their team, used to have a seat at the back in case there’s anything that needed to be discussed relating to our topic. For example, my topic was Turkey and the War in Iraq.
The relationship however extended far beyond just congressional committee meetings. Alptekin explained the house he was living in while working in Washington D.C. was very close to the train station Senator Joe Biden would arrive at every morning after his daily morning commute from Delaware. Alptekin would often run into Joe Biden at the same Union Station coffee shop and then walk together over to the Capitol.
Ekim Alptekin: Also, Joe Biden used to take the train to the congress each morning, and I used to live right next to the Union Station. My house was literally within walking distance, within some 50 meters of Union Station. I’d get my coffee from Union Station and go to work. We used to run into each other there, he knew of me as a staffer of Rep. Tom Lantos. We walked to the [Capitol] Building together on several occasions. I can’t say that we are close friends but we are acquainted with each other.
Alptekin then goes on to make a simply shocking admission about the timing of Joe Biden’s brother’s trip to Turkey.
Ekim Alptekin: Later on, when these things happened, they consulted with some mutual friends and decided to better understand what happened. Eventually, his brother [Jim Biden] and wife [Sara Biden] came to Turkey in 2019. I hosted them here in Turkey, arranged various meetings, explained and promoted Turkey. This is how I became acquainted with his family.
Cüneyt Özdemir: I did not understand, did you host the Biden family in Turkey? With whom did you arrange meetings? Did you arrange those meetings for his brother
Ekim Alptekin: Yes, I arranged meetings with business people after being introduced to the family through some mutual friends. They know of my past, that I worked in Congress. They are well aware that the Flynn situation is not what it was made to look like. It was something they were curious about; we’ve discussed it and the process resulted with them coming to Turkey.
So Joe Biden’s own brother, Jim Biden, reportedly made a trip to Turkey and was hosted by a major target of the U.S. Dept. of Justice (DOJ) Mueller Special Counsel investigation right in the middle of the persecution of Gen. Flynn in 2019. The same Joe Biden that FBI handwritten notes reveal was the originator of the ludicrous “Logan Act” theory used to remove Flynn as Trump’s National Security Advisor in the first place.
(…) These circumstances render the timing of this trip highly suspect. It is extremely doubtful that Jim Biden happened to pick this time to catch up on old times and drop in for a visit. Perhaps the answer for what was discussed is already spelled out in Lee Smith’s book The Permanent Coup where Ekim Alptekin’s story is told in Chapter 8: The Scope on Pgs. 111-116
He was being pressured on several fronts … They wanted Alptekin to take [Flynn] down.
“I’m ashamed to say I briefly considered it. Because General Flynn had already inexplicably plead guilty that he lied to the FBI”, said Alptekin. “and legal bills were piling up. I couldn’t work or travel, but then I thought about what my father told me.”
[Sevinc Alptekin] “You’re only a man if you have principles. And it’s only a principle if you apply it when it doesn’t suit you.”
(Read more: The Washington Pundit, 7/01/2021) (Archive)
(Timeline editor’s note: In an Oct 2021 interview on the Dark to Light Podcast with Tracy Beanz, Alptekin clarifies the exact timing of the Bidens trip to Turkey as two days before Joe Biden officially announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in April 2019.)