"OHIO US HOUSE CANDIDATE ISSUES PRESS RELEASE ON SIBEL EDMONDS …
By Brad Friedman
Brad Blog
8/12/2009 12:07PM
Sibel Edmonds’ ‘Revealing’ Testimony
David Krikorian campaign notes Google’s removal of ads by Turkish
lobby group denying Armenian genocide
Announces open-to-public preliminary hearing tomorrow in his Ohio
Election Commission case against Ohio Rep. Jean Schmidt…
As we continue to wait for the release of the video/transcript of
long-gagged FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds’ deposition last Saturday,
the campaign of David Krikorian, Ohio’s Democratic candidate for the
U.S. House seat in the 2nd Congressional district, has just issued a
press release relating to it. (Complete release posted below.) In the
statement, they re-iterate some of the information which The BRAD
BLOG covered during our live-blogging of the event over the weekend,
including Edmonds’ allegations under oath that "the Turkish Lobby in
the United States was under the direction of the Turkish Government
and engaged in operations including bribery, espionage and blackmail
with certain members of the US House of Representatives to further
its objectives in the United States including one of which is the
denial of the Armenian Genocide."
Some of those current and former House reps, such as Dennis Hastert
(R-IL), Dan Burton (R-IL), Bob Livingston (R-TX), Dick Gephardt (D-MO),
and Stephen Solarz (D-NY), were said to have been specifically named
during the 5-hour-long deposition. One female Representative, said to
be a Democrat and still serving in the House, was described, but not
named, as having been "hooked" by Turkish agents into participating in
a lesbian affair which is said to have been videotaped for potential
blackmail use against the sitting Congresswoman….
Krikorian’s statement also repeats his allegations against his
opponent, Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH), that she "took more money from
the Turkish lobby in the 2008 election cycle than any other member of
the House or Senate and has already booked thousands in contributions
from the Turkish lobby in 2009 despite there being almost no Turkish
people or interests in Ohio’s 2nd congressional district."
He goes on to allege that "Jean Schmidt has displayed a pattern of
taking money from groups in exchange for pushing their agendas."
Edmonds’ testimony arose out of a "false statements" complaint filed
by Schmidt against Krikorian, who is of Armenian descent, in the Ohio
Election Commission over his claim that she has accepted "blood money"
from Turkish interests who deny the 1915 Turkish genocide of ethnic
Armenians. Edmonds herself is a Turkish-born U.S. citizen. Schmidt
is the co-chair of the Congressional Turkish Caucus.
A preliminary hearing in the case will be conducted by the Ohio
Elections Commission in Columbus tomorrow. It will be open to the
public, beginning at 9:30am, according to the Krikorian press release.
The press release also cites a , highlighting a complaint from the
Turkish Coalition of America (TCA), against Google, charging that
they inappropriately removed ads which deny the Armenian Genocide. Fox
quotes "a person familiar with Google’s policies" likening the ads to
"a Nazi group that said the Holocaust is a myth."
On Saturday, Krikorian told The BRAD BLOG, during a break in Edmonds’
testimony: "From my opinion, if I’m some of the current members of
Congress, I’d be very very worried about the information that’s going
to come out of this. There are current members of Congress that she
has implicated in bribery, espionage. It’s not good. It’s crazy, it’s
absolutely crazy. For people in power situations in the United States,
who know about this information, if they don’t take action against it,
in my opinion, it’s negligence."