At least 151 lawmakers from 29 states visited Turkey between 2006 and 2015, on behalf of more than two dozen nonprofits linked with Fethullah Gulen, a reclusive Islamic cleric whose religious and social movement are blamed for the failed coup attempt in Turkey last July.
From the Center for Public Integrity:
It's especially surprising for the invitations to come from a powerful religious movement that until recently ran media outlets and a bank before falling out with the government in Turkey, a pivotal U.S. ally that serves as the gateway to the Middle East. Though followers of the movement deny having supported the failed coup, Turkey has asked the United States to extradite its leader, Fethullah Gulen, a reclusive Islamic cleric who lives in a compound not in Ankara or Istanbul but in the woods of Pennsylvania.
The Center for Public Integrity documented the extent of the trips and found that some state lawmakers who attended them later introduced resolutions supporting Gulen's controversial Hizmet movement. And some have even supported charter schools that are part of a network from Washington, D.C., to California of roughly 160 taxpayer-funded schools run by friends of the movement.
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