Fethullah Gulen lives in exile in Saylorsburg PA in a luxurious compound while 151 of his
devotees receive life sentences for participating in the July 15, 2016 military coup attempt
For reasons unknown to the public, the U.S. government gave Turkish Islamic leader Fethullah Gulen asylum several years ago. Gulen operates his worldwide religious/political movement from Saylorsburg PA. His movement includes nearly 200 tax-supported charter schools which help fuel a vast business/political/religious enterprise in the U.S.
Gulen was accused by the Turkish government of inspiring (ordering) the 2016 military coup. The U.S. government has rejected the call of Turkey for the extradition of Gulen.
The Gulen charter schools are used to bring thousands of Gulenists into the U.S. on H1B visas.
Although the FBI and other state and federal agencies have raided several Gulen charters (including some in Ohio and the Concept Management company), the reports of the investigations never seem to surface. Gulen is protected by individuals and agencies at the highest level of government. Meanwhile, the Gulen charters in the U.S. continue to “educate” American students in the Gulen political/religious world view.
It would seem that state officials and the sponsors of the Gulen charters—ESC of Lake Erie West and Buckeye Community Hope Foundation—would scrutinize the operation and educational programming of the Gulen charters operating within the borders of the U.S.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We can give this freak (apologies to freaks) asylum so he can indoctrinate our kids and embezzle our money, but we can’t give asylum to women, children and families fleeing drugs, violence and other mayhem of our making south of our border. This country is F**ed. For our leaders who believe in the Bible, they might want to look up that passage about “as ye have done unto the least of these my brethren.”
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For what it’s worth, I don’t believe that the Gulen schools are doing any indoctrinating or embezzling. They aim to keep a low profile for their “money laundering” (and funneling) by following the rules and keeping indoctrination out of the equation. Gulen schools are a CIA endeavor that was pushed during the Obama/HRC years. Why? I don’t know because it’s such a mess in the Middle East and US involvement plays a big role in it. It’s a political cover up that no one wants to have exposed.
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This is way before Obama… The indoctrination is targeted not at the students, but at the Turkish teachers who are made to believe that they are doing “service” to some higher purpose (called “hizmet”). This is one way of keeping them underpaid (there was a 60 minutes episode about how they circumvented labor dept policies for employing foreigners with less pay). These teachers tend to be economically libertarian, culturally conservative, liberal Muslims, who studies in the US but could not find an employer who would sponsor their H1B and green card.
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I think almost by definition, taking money for U.S. schools and laundering it to foreign causes is embezzlement. I suppose that might not technically be the term, but it’s some form of theft.
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It is telling that a man of means and great wealth would, when seeking exile in the U.S. and thinks of opportunities to maintain and increase his wealth, choose to do so by establishing private elementary and secondary schools. Why not oil & gas, investment banking, or the many, many other avenues and sources of profit-making that exist for rich people? There are a couple of reasons, I think. First, someone must have advised him that privatization of schools was first and foremost a source of making money, not educating children. He saw through the cynical ruse of privatizers and realized he could make great amounts of money without the scrutiny that comes with other ventures. Second, he saw it as a great opportunity to build and maintain a patronage system that might come in handy, politically speaking, in the future. The fact that he is likely just as much a despot as Erdogan gets lost in the shuffle. It also is an example of the Achilles heel in the policy of favoring wealthy persons in American immigration policy, which does not distinguish between good money and bad nor what one intends to do with it. As long as it creates wealth for some, the “how” of doing so is an afterthought and ignored.
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The US intelligence community has been protecting its important assets since Allen Dulles found ways to import his Nazi collaborators after WW II. They’re being wealthy doesn’t hurt, but maybe we should ask how many of our public education dollars are being laundered to fund the overthrow of the Turkish government that’s not following US orders.
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BINGO!!! But we will likely never know the whole story.
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My personal theory of on what grounds Gulen sought asylum: Fear of the military, which his followers had infiltrated in the past 30-40 years, which used to be able to somewhat uphold secular democracy in Turkey, and which his Islamic capitalism movement threatened.
In fact, in the early 2000s the Erdogan government largely dismantled the military based on evidence (later proven to be fabricated by the Gulenists) that the military was plotting two coups.
Gulen and Erdogan’s fallout starting with the 2010s has only to do with not being able to work as co-conspirators anymore, and each knowing too much about the other.
Whether the events of July 2015 were genuinely a coup organized by the Gulenists (or a pretext for the Erdogan government to delegitimize the former and dismantle the military some more) is highly disputed.
It is not true that the US and Turkey are not getting along now, especially with the intricate relationships among Trump, Putin, Erdogan, Assad, etc. For example, just recently Turkey went through with buying Russian missiles despite the US and NATO’s disapproval, and there was talk of sanctions, but nothing happened. In short, I don’t think either that the US is trying to overthrow the Turkish government, or that there is necessarily reason to do so.
1-3 might suggest that the US intelligence community has been protecting Gulen. The money made in the US and other countries through private schools (which included not only charter/voucher tax $$, but also service contracts to schools) could certainly (and did) fund a vast network of at least one layer of a ‘deep state’ in Turkey. But that has largely lost to Erdogan’s own network. So, it is unclear how Gulen could still be assumed to be an asset to the US now. Maybe just a future investment, except the man has not much future left.
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This may explain in small part why Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman back charter schools.
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The CIA!!!!
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