Turkish-American Influence Group’s New Vice-Chairman Is Also President of Turkish Islamist Businessman’s Group

Accord­ing to the Turk­ish Amer­i­can Nation­al Steer­ing Committee’s (TASC), its new Vice-Chair­man of the Board is an indi­vid­ual who is also the pres­i­dent of the USA youth wing of a Turk­ish Islamist businessman’s group. The TASC ‘About Us” page iden­ti­fies Gokhan Dogan as the Board Vice-Chair­man, and Dogan, who has also had been the TASC Media Direc­tor, is also the pres­i­dent of Young MÜSİAD USA. MÜSİAD, in turn, is a Turk­ish businessman’s group found­ed in 1990 which aims to cre­ate a syn­the­sis of busi­ness and Islam­ic con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues. It pro­fess­es not to be a polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion yet has finan­cial­ly sup­port­ed the Turk­ish AKP par­ty, been sup­port­ed itself by Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdoğan, and MÜSİAD lead­ers have left their posi­tions to become AKP politicians.

The Turk­ish Amer­i­can Nation­al Steer­ing Com­mit­tee (TASC) is strong­ly tied to Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdoğan:

• TASC co-chair Gunay Evinch is a prin­ci­pal of Saltz­man & Evinch, a law firm retained by Turkey and reg­is­tered as a for­eign agent of Turkey in 2020.

• TASC co-chair Halil Mut­lu is Erdoğan’s cousin.

• TASC’s for­mer trea­sur­er, Murat Guzel, detailed his US polit­i­cal activ­i­ties in e‑mails to Erdoğan fam­i­ly mem­bers. Guzel is also MÜSİAD USA’s cur­rent pres­i­dent.

Oth­er rel­e­vant GIOR report­ing has included:

• In May 2021, we report­ed that TASC, along­side an NJ mayor’s office, orga­nized a Ramadan iftar (fast-break­ing) also was attend­ed by NJ Con­gress­man Bill Pascrell.

• In May 2021, we report­ed that TASC co-chair Gunay Evinch protest­ed Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s recog­ni­tion of the Armen­ian genocide.

• In March 2021, we report­ed that MÜSIAD spon­sored a bill­board sup­port­ing Turkey and Azer­bai­jan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.