NEW YORK — The Wall Street Journal has published a lengthy article on Donald Trump’s Foreign Business Entanglements that highlight his family’s dealings with Turkish and Azerbaijani government connected entities.
The Trump children have business ties with an Azerbaijani government minister’s son and a media company that became Turkish president Regeb Tayyip Erdogan’s outlet of choice during the July 15 coup attempt.
The Trump company’s relationship in Turkey is with Dogan Holding that operates oil companies, a real-estate empire and media properties.
Mr. Trump’s May 2016 federal disclosure reports income to one of his companies in the range of $1 million to $5 million since the beginning of 2015 from Dogan related to Istanbul towers bearing Mr. Trump’s name.
The night of the failed coup, Dogan’s flagship television network became the venue through which Mr. Erdogan appealed to citizens to oppose the putsch. That was a turnabout for Dogan, whose chairman and other executives this year were charged in Turkey with criminal tax evasion, widely seen as retaliation for a perceived antigovernment slant by Dogan media outlets.
Since the failed coup, Dogan’s media group has taken on a more pro-government line, including broadcasts supporting Mr. Erdogan’s claim that Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen was responsible for the putsch.
In Azerbaijan, Mr. Trump’s July 2015 federal disclosure reports that a company owned by Mr. Trump had received $2.5 million in income since the beginning of 2014 in a deal that includes management services for a hotel and condo tower being developed by Anar Mammadov, whose father is the country’s transportation minister.
Mammadov is the founder of the Azerbaijan America Alliance. The group spent $12.6 million between 2011 and 2015 on federal lobbyists to promote Azerbaijan interests in Washington, according to federal filings compiled by Center For Responsive Politics.
