After Azerbaijan case, experts started studying trips of U.S. Congressman to Turkey

Lujan Grisham and a companion stayed at a five-star palace-turned-hotel in Istanbul. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

Following the scandalous trip of U.S. Congressmen to Azerbaijan, details on Congressmen’s trips to Turkey have appeared in media.

In total, Capitol Hill lawmakers and staff made 159 privately sponsored trips to Turkey during the 113th Congress. But a recent report suggests hidden sources which footed the bill for five-star hotels and luxurious restaurants, http://blogs.rollcall.com/ reports.

The trips were funded by different organizations which admitted they used the Bosphorus Atlantic Cultural Association of Friendship and Cooperation (BAKIAD) to arrange and finance the trips. But BAKIAD’s involvement was not disclosed in any of the documents submitted to the House Ethics Committee.

While lobbyists and lobbying firms are prohibited from financing trips, they can be paid by non-profit organizations, who must not reveal their sources.

But, according to the experts, the case of Azerbaijan became “a roadmap about how to evade the limits in the law for who can pay for travel.”  The experts think the Congress needs to carefully review how nonprofit sponsors plan to pay for overseas journeys.