Giuliani pressed Trump to eject Muslim cleric from U.S., a top priority of Turkish president (WP)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/giuliani-pressed-trump-to-eject-muslim-cleric-from-us-a-top-priority-of-turkish-president-former-officials-say/2019/10/15/bf43d1ec-ef68-11e9-b648-76bcf86eb67e_story.html

Giuliani pressed Trump to eject Muslim cleric from U.S., a top priority of Turkish president, former officials say
By Carol D. Leonnig, Ellen Nakashima, Josh Dawsey and Tom Hamburger
Oct. 15, 2019 at 8:01 p.m. CDT

Rudolph W. Giuliani privately urged President Trump in 2017 to extradite a Turkish cleric living in exile in the United States, a top priority of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to multiple former administration officials familiar with the discussions.

Giuliani, a Trump ally who later became the president’s personal attorney, repeatedly argued to Trump that the U.S. government should eject Fethullah Gulen from the country, according to the former officials, who spoke on the condition on anonymity to describe private conversations.

Turkey has demanded that the United States turn over Gulen, a permanent U.S. resident who lives in Pennsylvania, to stand trial on charges of plotting a 2016 coup attempt against Erdogan. Gulen has denied involvement in the plot.

Giuliani is now under scrutiny for his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political rivals. His earlier attempts to persuade the president to turn over the Turkish cleric represent another instance in which he appears to have been pushing a shadow foreign policy from his perch outside government.

The former New York mayor brought up Gulen so frequently with Trump during visits to the White House that one former official described the subject as Giuliani’s “hobby horse.” He was so focused on the issue — “it was all Gulen,” recalled a second former official — that White House aides worried that Giuliani was making the case on behalf of the Turkish government, former officials said.

“We’re not going to arrest [Gulen] to do a solid for Erdogan,” the second official said, describing the internal thinking.

However, Trump appeared receptive to the idea, pressing his advisers about Gulen’s status, the people said.

One former senior administration official recalled that Trump asked frequently about why Gulen couldn’t be turned over to Turkey, referring to Erdogan as “my friend.”

Administration officials were overwhelmingly opposed to the idea and told the president that the move could violate the legal process and damage him politically.