By Harut Sassounian,

When Sen. Lindsey Graham (Republican-South Carolina) blocked the Senate vote on the Armenian Genocide Resolution on November 13, 2019, there was widespread speculation as to what motivated him to do so. The reasons ranged from his meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the White House shortly before his vote, to his flip-flopping on several other issues, and to succumbing to Pres. Trump’s pro-Turkish policies.

Another good reason to explain Sen. Graham’s vote against the Armenian Genocide Resolution is the money he had received from Turkish-Americans for his political campaigns.

Ian J. Lynch wrote an article in the Ahwalnews.com website documenting the Turkish donations to Sen. Graham’s campaigns. These amounts are in addition to the millions of dollars that the Turkish government pays to American lobbying firms in Washington, D.C., to undermine the adoption of the Armenian Genocide Resolution in Congress. On October 11, 2019, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, was added to the long list of American companies lobbying for Turkey. Interestingly, this lobbying firm was hired by TransAtlantic Petroleum, a Texas company with oil and gas interests in Turkey. Akin Gump is supposed to lobby to block the implementation of sanctions against Turkey, a bill that was overwhelmingly adopted by the House of Representatives on October 29, 2019.

Lynch reported that the Armenian government spent no money on lobbying in the United States and the Armenian-American organizations in Washington, D.C. spent very little on lobbying compared to the millions of dollars spent by the Turkish government. “According to the most recent IRS returns, the AAA [Armenian Assembly of America] raised nearly $2 million in 2017, however, as a 501(c)(3) non-profit group it is not permitted to spend a substantial amount of its budget on lobbying. According to disclosures required by the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA), the AAA spent $95,000 on lobbying activities in 2018 and $80,000 so far in 2019. The ANCA [Armenian National Committee of America] is registered as a 501(c)(4) non-profit, meaning it can spend the majority of its budget on lobbying. Its total revenue in 2017 was nearly $850,000, but the organization only spent $120,000 on lobbying in each of the past two years, according to LDA disclosures.”

After the US House of Representatives adopted the Armenian Genocide Resolution on October 29, 2019, the Turkish American National Steering Committee (TASC) went into action to stop the passage of the counterpart of the House bill in the Senate.

According to Lynch, “TASC’s leadership and their associates have direct connections to Erdogan’s inner circle and a recent history of making individual political contributions to Graham…. TASC’s co-chairman, Dr. Halil Mutlu, is a cousin of Erdogan. He and his wife donated a total of $10,800 to Team Graham Inc., the senator’s re-election campaign for Senate in 2020, on Aug. 8, 2016. Their individual contributions of $5,400 each are the maximum an individual can give to a political campaign in the U.S. per election cycle. Mutlu’s employer, Baystate Medical Center in Massachusetts, is one of Team Graham’s biggest sources of donations. In the current election cycle, the hospital’s employees have contributed $21,600 to the senator’s 2020 campaign.”

The employees of another Turkish-linked company, Nimeks Organics, are among the top donors to Sen. Graham’s campaign, providing a total of $16,200 in individual donations during this election cycle. “Nimeks is a product line of Natural Foods Group based in Pennsylvania, which imports food products from Turkey. The company’s CEO, Murat Guzel, is also the treasurer of TASC,” according to Lynch.

In addition, the Guzel family donated a total of $8,100 to Graham’s presidential campaign on June 28, 2016, “despite the fact that Graham had dropped out of that race the previous December. The donation came shortly after the coup attempt in Turkey,” Lynch reported. “Just weeks later, Guzel and his family donated a further $10,800 to Team Graham, one day before the Mutlu family donated the same sum on Aug. 8. Neither the Mutlus nor Guzels are constituents of Graham, who represents South Carolina.”

Strangely, Guzel was donating to a Republican Senator at a time when “he was the chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Heritage Council and contributed nearly $300,000 to democratic committees supporting Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign,” according to Lynch. Guzel must have had a strong reason for heading one political party’s committee while donating to its opponent.

Guzel maintained close contact with Berat Albayrak, Pres. Erdogan’s son-in-law and Treasury and Finance Minister, Bilal Erdogan, the president’s son, and Ibrahim Kalin, the President’s spokesman. From time to time, Guzel “asks Turkish officials for help coordinating his political activities,” which was made public after Albayrak’s emails were hacked, according to Lynch.

It is not surprising that the FBI investigated TASC officials. “In a Sept. 8, 2016 email, Ibrahim Uyar, a co-founder of TASC, told Albayrak that the FBI questioned him about whether TASC and other Turkish organizations were involved in efforts to intervene in American politics on the Turkish government’s behalf. Uyar also indicated several others were questioned including Guzel and Halil Danısmaz, the founding president of the Turkish Heritage Organization (THO).” In emails to Albayrak years earlier, Danısmaz once proposed a “camouflaged” lobbying campaign to overcome “funding regulations and tax barriers that limit lobbying activities in the U.S.” When the emails were released, Danısmaz resigned from THO, Lynch reported.

The Turkish Coalition Northeast PAC also contributed to Sen. Graham’s campaign. In April of this year, it gave its maximum allowable donation of $5,000 to Team Graham, “its largest gift to a candidate committee in the current election cycle,” Lynch revealed.

After Sen. Graham made supportive remarks about Turkey at a conference in Munich, Team Graham received a $1,000 donation from the US lobbying firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP, which is hired by Turkey.

Sen. Graham met with Greenberg Traurig lobbyists on January 10, 2019, a week before he visited Turkey to meet with Pres. Erdogan. While in Turkey, Erdogan invited Sen. Graham to attend a concert with him, which Graham described as “one of the best experiences” of his life.

Lynch concluded his report by asserting: “What is clear is that the close-knit network of Turkish organizations and political action committees in the United States with ties to the Erdogan family think Graham is worthy of the investment of their time and political contributions.”

We do not know the result of the 2016 FBI investigation of TASC and other Turkish American organizations, however, there seems to be sufficient ground to look into their possible violation of the Foreign Agent Registration Act, as unregistered lobbyists for a foreign government!

by David Boyajian

Turkey, the increasingly wayward NATO member, has been making more national and international headlines than usual.

On Oct. 29, for instance, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed (405-11) Resolution 296.  It recognized the Armenian, Assyrian, Greek, and other Christian genocides committed by Turkey.

A contentious, widely criticized White House meeting involving President Trump, Turkey’s autocratic President Erdogan, and Republican senators then took place on Nov. 13.

Two days later, Marie L. Yovanovitch, dismissed by President Trump in May of 2019 as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, testified on national TV before the House Select Committee on Intelligence’s impeachment inquiry.  Her dismissal, she alleged, occurred because Trump attorney and confidant Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr., Fox News hosts, and others had been slandering her as disloyal to the president.

There are intriguing links among the House’s Genocide resolution, the Trump-Erdogan-Senators meeting, and Yovanovitch, Pres. George W. Bush’s (“Bush II”) Ambassador to the Republic of Armenia.

What no Democratic or Republican committee member dared ask Yovanovitch — and what she didn’t wish to discuss — was her apparent 13-year-long failure to criticize the scandalous dismissal and forced early retirement of a fine American diplomat, John Marshall Evans.

He was Bush II’s ambassador to Armenia (June 2004 to Sept. 2006).  Yovanovitch followed Evans in that same post (Sept. 2008 to June 2011).

Due to senators’ revulsion at Evans’ dismissal, the ambassadorship stood empty in the two year interim.

Armenian American communities always host U.S. ambassadors to Armenia.  In February of 2005, Amb. Evans told them, “I will today call it the Armenian Genocide” because “it is unbecoming of us as Americans to play word games.”

It was an honest admission of America’s 90-year-long recognition of Turkey’s extermination (1915-23) of 1.5 million Armenian Christians.  But the State Dept. disliked Evans’ use of the word “genocide.”  Turkey cried foul too.

At Turkey’s insistence, the State Dept. tells American diplomats and presidents to avoid the G word (genocide) regarding the Armenian extermination.  Such spinelessness, while typical of the State Dept.’s traditional obsequiousness towards Turkey, is a disgrace.

Yet Amb. Evans was simply echoing, as but one example, President Reagan’s Proclamation 4838 in 1981 which cited “the genocide of Armenians.”

Regrettably, post-Reagan presidential statements commemorating the Genocide have avoided the G word.  They employ euphemisms such as “annihilation,” “forced exile and murder,” “infamous killings,” “terrible massacres,” and “marched to their death.”

However, House resolutions in 1996 (Res.3540), 1984 (Res.247), and 1975 (Res.148) affirmed the Armenian “genocide.”

Perhaps more significantly, a U.S. filing in 1951 with the International Court of Justice (“World Court”) cited “the Turkish massacre of the Armenians” as “genocide.”

Use of the G word remains important for legal reasons because it is defined in the UN Genocide Convention/Treaty of 1948 which most countries have signed.

Amb. Evans Punished

Amb. Evans was nevertheless forced to issue a clarification in late February of 2005 for uttering the G word.  But the State Dept. didn’t like its wording.  So it wrote a clarification of the clarification and ordered Evans to sign it.  Though Evans bravely toiled on, his 33-year career was in jeopardy.

The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) has over 16,000 current and retired Foreign Service members.  In 2005, after Amb. Evans had uttered the G word, AFSA announced he would receive its prestigious “Constructive Dissent Award.”

The award recognizes “initiative, integrity, intellectual courage and constructive dissent” and diplomats who “question the status quo and take a stand no matter the sensitivity of the issue or the consequences” and “stick his/her neck out.”  Perfect descriptions of Amb. Evans.

But Turkish anger and Bush II’s State Dept. bullied AFSA into withdrawing the award.  The alleged reason: Evans’ “genocide” dissent hadn’t gone through official channels.  Had Evans done so, though, his entreaty would surely have wound up in a shredder.

Cong. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) blasted the AFSA for setting “a terrible example.”  The award “was taken from [Evans] because of politics and denial.”

Compare Evans’ courage with Yovanovitch’s publicly bemoaning her recall from Ukraine.  Still a State Dept. employee, she’s now a Senior State Dept. Fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.

Her predecessor Amb. Evans, in contrast, was driven into early retirement in 2006 by the White House.  “Born-again Christian” Bush II kowtowed to Turkish pressure over the genocide of a Christian nation.

In 2008, Bush II nominated Yovanovitch as Ambassador to Armenia.  The Senate Foreign Relations Committee conducted her confirmation hearing.

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and others were upset that neither Yovanovitch nor Bush II would acknowledge the annihilation of Armenians as “genocide.”  She also incorrectly testified that no president had cited the killings of Armenians as “genocide.”  As we know, Pres. Reagan did so in 1981.

After a brutal battle, the Senate nevertheless confirmed her in August of 2008.

As Ambassador to Armenia, Yovanovitch was reportedly asked whether she’d acknowledge the Armenian Genocide if the president were to do so.  One would assume she’d simply say yes.  Instead, she dodged the question.

An “ambassador serves his president and may be recalled at any time and for any reason [emphasis added],” she replied. “It fully depends on the president.”

If Yovanovitch really believed that, why is she grumbling about being recalled from Ukraine?

Indeed, newly-elected presidents such as Obama and Trump usually require current ambassadors to submit their resignations.  Perhaps Obama-appointee (Aug. 2016) Yovanovitch should be grateful that Trump kept her on for 28 months.

Yovanovitch visited Armenian American communities in 2009.  She again frustrated them with evasive answers about the Genocide and the conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijan over Armenian-majority Karabagh/Artsakh.  I attended one such visit in Arlington, Mass.

And, apparently, Yovanovitch has never commented on Amb. Evans’ dismissal.

The largely unheralded John Evans stands head and shoulders above Yovanovitch, a media darling.

Obama and Other Flip-Floppers

As a presidential candidate in 2008, Senator Obama and his soon-to-be National Security Advisor and UN Ambassador Samantha Power promised Armenian Americans to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide if he became president.  Power’s Pulitzer Prize-winning A Problem from Hell (2002) devoted chapter 1 to the Armenian Genocide.

Yet President Obama and Power later avoided the G word.

When Hillary Clinton became Obama’s Secretary of State (2009-13), she flip-flopped too.  She avoided the G word that she’d used as a New York senator and 2008 presidential candidate.

In 2010, Sec. Clinton laid flowers at Armenia’s Genocide Memorial.  She stressed, however, that her stealthy visit was merely “private,” not official.

Yet she and Presidents Clinton, Bush II, and Obama have officially paid their respects at the Kemal Ataturk mausoleum/memorial in Ankara, Turkey.  Ataturk was the Turkish leader who continued the Genocide against Armenians and Christian Greeks and Assyrians from 1919 onwards.

While they avoid the G word for the Armenian Genocide, these top American leaders are comfortable honoring a Turkish genocidist.

The Armenian Genocide is nearly universally accepted by expert historians, despite Turkey’s absurd denials.  Indeed, for one hundred years, historians have possessed Turkish telegrams that explicitly ordered mass murder.  These have been proven, yet again, to be absolutely genuine.

Like his immediate predecessors, Pres. Trump has avoided the G word.  But he has called the Armenian Genocide “mass atrocities” and (as did Obama) “Medz Yeghern” (Armenian for Great Crime).

Some impeachment inquiry members knew all about Yovanovitch’s failure to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide and Evans’ dismissal and coerced retirement.  Had they brought it up, however, they would have been walking through political minefields.

Political Minefields

Republican committee members could easily have damaged Yovanovitch’s credibility. They could have revealed her evasions regarding the Armenian Genocide in her 2008 confirmation hearing and her apparent ongoing failure to express dismay at Evans’ dismissal from the post she inherited.  Yet they failed to bring any of this up.

After all, it was Bush II, a Republican, who dismissed Amb. Evans, appointed Yovanovitch, failed (as has Trump) to recognize the Armenian Genocide, and pressured AFSA to rescind its award to Evans.  Plus, Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois withdrew an Armenian Genocide resolution in 2000, partly at the behest of former Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

As for Democrats, committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) represents a sizeable Armenian constituency in Los Angeles.  He knows Yovanovitch’s record very well.  But Democratic presidents Clinton and Obama themselves avoided the G word.  Moreover, in 2007 Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) withdrew an Armenian Genocide resolution.  So Schiff said nothing.

Hence, the impeachment inquiry committee didn’t broach the Yovanovitch/Evans issue even though Turkish and Armenian issues were simultaneously swirling around Washington.

And, of course, had questions about Evans led to the hypocritical roles of the Jewish lobby and Israel in denying/diminishing, and defeating resolutions on, the Armenian Genocide, it would have opened a Pandora’s box.

U.S. Senate Resolution

The Senate has a pending Genocide resolution (Res.150) identical to that the House just passed.

But GOP Senators Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, David Perdue of Georgia, James Risch of Idaho, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky have blocked a vote on it.

President Erdogan is undoubtedly threatening the White House over the resolution and other issues.  It doesn’t help that Pres. Trump’s investments in Turkey constitute, in his own words, “a little conflict of interest.”

On May 11, 1920 the Republican majority Senate passed Resolution 359 on the “massacres and other atrocities from which the Armenian people have suffered.” The resolution couldn’t use the G word because it was coined only in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin.  He recognized Turkey’s extermination of Armenians as a seminal genocide and drafted the UN Genocide Convention/Treaty.

Few Americans know that Presidents Cleveland, Harrison, McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, Harding, and Hoover also condemned the atrocities Turkey perpetrated against Armenians and others over decades.

Why It Matters

Does any of this matter?

Aside from moral and humanitarian considerations, yes.

The Caucasus — Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia — remains a geopolitical hotspot and a major flash point between the U.S. and Russia.  Much is at stake.

Turkey has threatened Armenia, sometimes with genocidal memes, since the latter’s independence in 1991.

Armenia’s 2 million or so Christians are trapped between hostile Turkey and Azerbaijan with their combined 90 million populations.  Turkey and Azerbaijan are allies.  Moreover, Israel and the powerful Jewish lobby are allies of Azerbaijan and unfriendly to Armenia.

Armenia’s existence, therefore, is continually in peril.  It’s a major reason why Armenia allies itself with Russia, the nearest major Christian power.

Armenia has also excellent relations with the U.S. and Europe.

But when American presidents and the State Dept. play word games with the Armenian Genocide, this does not reassure Armenia, which must draw negative conclusions about America’s trustworthiness and intentions.

That, in turn, is not in America’s interests.

In 2008, Cong. Jim Costa (D-CA) wrote the following to Yovanovitch:

“Denying a traumatic event such as genocide, one cannot create, nor implement, honest and effective diplomacy.”

Those words ring truer than ever.

The author is a Massachusetts-based freelance journalist.  Many of his articles can be found at www.Armeniapedia.org/wiki/David_Boyajian.