official, which is this quasi government official, he s a private citizen, but for him to execute the plan, he can only execute it when he s in the white house and has the governing authority to execute the plan, if that s the plan. exactly. and for the purposes of the mueller probe, one thing that attorneys close to the probe tell me is that the campaign, the transition and the white house are all considered three separate legal entities. so that makes this type of situation, particularly complex for the mueller team, but of course, this means it could implicate two different legal teams looking at the conversation that happened during the transition, but would have impacted the white house, one tidbit about this kind of interesting is remember at issue is the question of this controversial cleric they were trying to forcibly move from his combat in the pocanos back to turkey. last summer, a colleague and i spoke with gulan at his compound in the pocanos, and it would be pretty hard
last summer, a colleague and i spoke with gulan at his compound in the pocanos, and it would be pretty hard to get him out of there. he basically lives in almost a bunker. it s difficult to get in. it s a very rural area. it would take a lot of effort to try to find a way to extract this man from his home. so any plans that they had that could have come up would have been really ambitious. michael flynn s lawyer said out of respect for the process of the various investigations regarding the 2016 campaign, we have intentionally avoided responding to every allegation in the media. but today s news cycle has brought allegations about general flynn, ranging from kidnapping to bribery. congratulations, julia, kidnapping to bribery. that are so outrageous and prejudice shl that we are making an exception to our usual rule, they are false. well, you got their attention. of course. well, it s interesting because, first of all, two things i would say about this.
flynn and turkish officials aboutpotential ways to get erdogan back to turkey to face charges. there was at least some strong suggestion by the one or more of the americans present at the meeting to the turks that we would be able, the united states would be able through them to get hold of gulan. reporter: at the time a spokesman for flynn denied there were any talks about physically removing a muslim cleric leader and legal permanent member of the u.s. a failed militant coup attempt in if we are strategic partners or model partners, do what is necessary. reporter: and tonight flynn s attorney released a statement saying, out of respect for the process of the various investigations regarding the 2016 campaign, we have
whose names come up, deripaska is one that seems to be in this nexus with the trump campaign because of his relationship with paul manafort, look, it s quite possible there s no connection, that was not an avenue of collusion. if that is true, it would be wonderful if he would answer those questions. and i would think he would be eager to answer those questions if, in fact, that was true. we ll see if you get a chance to ask him those questions. we ll turn to the russian investigation, the wall street journal reporting that the special counsel robert mueller is investigating an alleged plan from trump s former national security adviser michael flynn and his son michael flynn jr., who one one of his father s advisers, they worked together. the journal reporting they were offering $15 million to forcibly remove a muslim cleric from turkey, gulan, who currently lives in pennsylvania, and return him back to the turkish government. gulan is accused of being
might be connected to it does put anxiety on someone s mind. so it is a stressful moment for people, even if they re just witnesses in the investigation. and, remember, mike flynn a few months ago his attorney sent a letter saying that he has a story to tell. he has a story to tell. we ve stressed tonight i think very appropriately so that mike flynn isn t guilty of anything yet, but as jim sciutto said, there is the turkey lobbying, which he did not report until later. retroactively. there are the allegations that he wanted to physically remove gulan, this turkish cleric from the country. we know he was fired from the white house because he was discussing apparently russian sanctions, which would be a violation of the logan act, which is never prosecuted, but still. and then there is that speech in russia. talk about flipping this guy, squeezing flynn, i mean, and his son was his chief of staff and top aide. so he was with him in a lot of