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Hastert Joins Lobby Firm
Representing Turkey
 WASHINGTON—Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.)
became the latest House member to join the army of
Washington, D.C. public relations firms working to cover up
Turkey’s crimes, reported the ANCA.
Dickstein Shapiro, LLP announced that the former Speaker
joined their team in a press release last week. The firm,
which represents a broad range of entities including General
Motors, Kraft Foods, and Pfizer, also represents the
government of Turkey “in connection with the development and
financing by private sponsors of the Baku-Ceyhan oil
pipeline and TransCaspian gas pipeline spanning from the
Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean.”
According to the ABC News story, “Ex-House Speaker Hastert
Finds New Home” by Justin Rood, a Dickstein Shapiro
representative “could not say whether or not Hastert would
be working on projects involving that country.”
No stranger to Turkish-American issues, as Speaker, Hastert
led efforts to block Armenian Genocide legislation from
passage dating back to October 2000, when he withdrew
H.Res.596, introduced by Rep. George Radanovich (R-Calif.),
from the congressional docket just five minutes prior to its
consideration. Speaker Hastert cited a letter from President
Bill Clinton expressing concerns about the national security
implications of the resolution.
In his subsequent terms as Speaker, Hastert blocked a series
of Armenian Genocide resolutions from reaching the House
floor, despite widespread congressional support and
grassroots calls for legislative action. In 2004, when the
House adopted an amendment to the foreign aid bill blocking
Turkey’s use of U.S. funds for lobbying efforts to deny the
Armenian Genocide, Hastert’s response was swift, joining
with Majority Leader Blunt and Majority Whip Tom DeLay in
sharply criticizing the measure: “Turkey has been a reliable
ally of the United States for decades, and the deep
foundation upon which our mutual economic and security
relationship rests should not be disrupted by this
amendment.”
In 2005, Armenian-Americans joined with System of a Down
band members Serj Tankian and John Dolmayan in a rally in
front of the Speaker Hastert’s Batavia, Ill. office urging
him to allow passage of the Armenian Genocide resolution.
That effort was part of an eight-year ANCA national
grassroots campaign urging Hastert to allow Congress to have
an up or down vote on the Armenian Genocide.
Hastert Ties with Turkish Government
An expose printed in the September 2005 issue of Vanity Fair
revealed possible ties between Speaker Hastert and Turkish
nationals geared to scuttle the Armenian Genocide
resolution. The magazine published a 10-page story on FBI
whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, who was fired after “she
accused a colleague of covering up illicit activity
involving Turkish nationals.” According to the article by
contributing editor David Rose, Edmonds claimed FBI wiretaps
revealed that the Turkish government and its allies boasted
of bribing—with as much as $500,000—the Speaker of the House
as part of an alleged deal to stop consideration of the
Armenian Genocide resolution.
The article cited accounts by Edmonds regarding FBI wiretaps
of the Turkish Embassy and Turkish groups such as the
American Turkish Council (ATC) and the Assembly of Turkish
American Associations (ATAA) including “repeated references
to Hastert’s flip-flop in the fall of 2000, over an issue
which remains of intense concern to the Turkish government,
the continuing campaign to have Congress designate the
killings of Armenians in Turkey between 1915 and 1923 a
genocide.”
Rose is careful to point out that “there is no evidence that
any payment was ever made to
Hastert or his campaign.” According to the article,
“Hastert’s spokesman says the Congressman withdrew the
genocide resolution only because of the approach from
[President] Clinton, ‘and to insinuate anything else just
doesn’t make any sense.’ He adds that Hastert has no
affiliation with the ATC or other groups reportedly
mentioned in the wiretaps.’”
In 2007, the ANCA joined a broad cross-section of civil
liberties, public policy, and human rights groups in calling
on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in
Congress to hold public hearings on the case of Sibel
Edmonds. No hearings have been held to date.
Former House Members Line Up to Support Turkey
Hastert is the latest in a long line of former House Members
who have joined firms on the Turkish government’s payroll.
Former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) and
former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) at DLA
Piper led efforts to block full House consideration of the
Armenian Genocide Resolution (H.Res.106 / S.Res.106) for an
annual fee of $1.2 million. Former House Appropriations
Committee chairman Bob Livingston of the Livingston Firm LLC
has, over the years, received over $12 million from the
Turkish government. He was recently let go by Turkey and
took on an even more lucrative agreement working for Libya.
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