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Turkey: Lobbying and Influence in the United States

Turkey: Lobbying and Influence in the United States

Turkey is a NATO treaty ally whose Erdoğan-era government has run aggressive, sometimes criminal, U.S. influence operations, now sharpened by a 2023–25 TURKEN-linked spending surge.

Turkey is a NATO ally with a deep security relationship with the United States. Its government and associated organizations have also maintained an extensive Washington influence operation, including episodes that led to criminal charges. The alliance and the influence record have to be evaluated together without confusing allegation, registration, and conviction.

An ally with several channels of influence

Turkey is a NATO member. CRS report R41368 describes a long security partnership that includes Incirlik Air Base and Article 5 commitments. The State Department frames the bilateral relationship the same way. That baseline cooperation is real and should not be mixed up with Erdoğan-era influence work.

Ankara has also pursued U.S. policy through registered firms and more controversial channels. The Halkbank sanctions-evasion case remains active in the Southern District of New York. Michael Flynn’s 2016 work is the best-known example of a retroactive registration involving a Turkish-linked client. Spending associated with the TURKEN network rose sharply from 2023 through 2025.

The registered paper trail

The DOJ FARA eFile system shows a long Turkish paper trail. Ballard Partners has registered work for the Embassy of the Republic of Türkiye and for Türkiye Halk Bankası (Halkbank). Mercury Public Affairs has filed on Turkish-linked briefs. The Gephardt Group filed on Turkish work in earlier years. OpenSecrets’ Turkey country page aggregates that filing history and shows a nine-figure cumulative spend over the past decade.

The 2023–2025 period stands out. Filings tied to the TURKEN Foundation, TÜRGEV, and Ensar: all linked to the Erdoğan family or close networks: show a sharp jump. Turkish Minute reported in November 2025 that TURKEN alone spent more than $48 million on U.S. lobbying in 2025, with combined TURKEN/TÜRGEV/Ensar spending near $77.5 million across 2023–2025. That is a private foundation network, not an embassy. The scale is what makes it notable.

Flynn’s Turkish-linked contract

Before he served as National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn’s firm took on a Turkish-linked contract. The Boston Globe reported in March 2017 that Flynn Intel Group received about $530,000 from Inovo BV, a Dutch firm tied to a Turkish businessman, between September and November 2016. On November 8, 2016: Election Day: Flynn published an op-ed in The Hill attacking the cleric Fethullah Gülen, who Ankara blamed for that year’s coup attempt. Flynn Intel Group filed a retroactive FARA registration on March 8, 2017. BuzzFeed News later reported court filings that said the work was supervised by Turkish government officials.

Ankara’s account of Gülen’s role in the coup attempt remains contested. The Washington Post covered that dispute. The payment, op-ed, and retroactive registration are documented; the wider political claim should not be treated as settled here.

Rafiekian and Halkbank

Flynn’s business partner Bijan Rafiekian was tried in 2019. A federal jury convicted him on charges of acting as an unregistered agent of Turkey. A federal judge later vacated the conviction, and DOJ did not retry the case. That is important. A vacated conviction is not a proven verdict. It is a prosecution that did not hold up. Readers should not cite it as settled guilt.

The Halkbank case is different. United States v. Türkiye Halk Bankası A.Ş. is a criminal prosecution in the Southern District of New York tied to alleged sanctions evasion. Ballard Partners has registered FARA work for Halkbank. The case remains in active litigation.

Allegations, disclosures, and outcomes

The record does not support treating Turkish diplomats generally as covert agents, dismissing NATO cooperation as a cover, or calling disclosed TURKEN spending illegal. FARA reveals registered work but cannot show every form of influence. A vacated conviction cannot be cited as a finding of guilt.

What the sources do establish is a sustained, professional operation using several channels. Flynn’s retroactive registration, the unresolved Halkbank prosecution, and the increase in TURKEN-linked spending each belong in the record, but they carry different legal meanings.

A conclusion that respects the case outcomes

Washington’s alliance with Turkey does not remove the need to examine Turkish-linked influence work. Nor do controversial cases make every disclosed relationship unlawful. The reliable conclusion is narrower: Turkey has used an extensive mix of registered advocacy and contested influence channels, and each episode must be described according to its actual legal outcome.

Sources used on this page