Burton And Others Accused Of Taking Bribes From Turkish Officials By FBI Whistleblower

It's a rather strange case arising out of our neighboring state of Ohio. U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission last year against an independent candidate who ran against her, David Krikorian, charging that he made false statements about her during the campaign accusing her of accepting Armenian-Turkish "blood money". The allegations arose out of claims made by an FBI whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds, that various high-ranking members of the U.S. government were the subject of a bribery, blackmail and espionage plot hatched by Turkish officials who allegedly infiltrated our government. Edmonds gave a deposition last month in the Schmidt case during which she accused various current and former members of Congress of accepting bribes from these Turkish officials, including Indiana's U.S. Rep. Dan Burton, former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Former Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA), Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), former Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-NY), former Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) and an unnamed Democratic congresswoman. The Brad Blog has obtained the deposition of Edmonds, including a transcript and video tape of her testimony. The passages of the testimony pertaining to Burton are highlighted in a post on that blog and include the following exchanges between lawyers and Edmonds:

Q: All right. Now, on that Website and this States Secrets Privilege gallery [ed note: photos on that page identified by Edmonds expert Luke Ryland here], it seems like you have photographs of various individuals, correct?

A: Yes.

Q: Is Dan Burton one of the people who's in the gallery?

A: His picture is there, yes.

Q: Okay. Why is his picture there?

A: I can't discuss the details of those individuals not legal activities in the United States, but those pictures, his and others, are there because State Secrets Privilege was mainly involved to cover up those individuals illegal, extremely illegal activities against the United States citizens who were involved in operations that were, again, against order [sic] foreign government and foreign entities against the United States' interests.

Q: And Dan Burton is a representative, member of Congress from Indiana; is that correct? Is that the right place?

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Q: Mr. Burton you said received bribes from the government of Turkey. What years were those bribes received?

A: My information that is limited for the time period 1997 until January 2002.

The accusations of the FBI whistleblower have received very little attention in the mainstream media. Government documents linked to by the Brad Blog suggest at least some of the allegations she had made against government officials from her former role as a counter-terrorist translor are deemed credible. "During the deposition . . . Edmonds discusses covert 'activities' by Turkish entities 'that would involve trying to obtain very sensitive, classified, highly classified U.S. intelligence information, weapons technology information, classified Congressional records...recruiting key U.S. individuals with access to highly sensitive information, blackmailing, bribery,'" the Brad Blog reports.

U.S. Rep. Dan Burton is facing the political fight of his life for re-election next year. He faces four credible and well-financed opponents in the Republican primary. To my knowledge, this issue has not been raised by any of Burton's opponents or the news media covering the campaign. I've also not seen any public statements issued by Burton in response to Edmonds allegatations. Edmonds allegations were first made public in a 2005 Vanity Fair expose'.