Hoping to deaden the bounce Dr. Mehmet Oz might get from tonight’s campaign rally with former President Donald J. Trump in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania GOP Senate hopeful Dave McCormick tapped an old West Point classmate, Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to beat the drum on concerns about Oz’s ties to his family’s native Turkey.
Pompeo, who has previously endorsed McCormick in this race, noted that while Oz won’t have to get a security clearance to get classified briefings if he wins election to the U.S. Senate, questions raised by Oz’s business and other ties to Turkey are exactly the kinds of things federal investigators scrutinize before granting security clearances to government employees and contractors.
He said Oz needs to be more forthcoming about his ties to be fair to voters.
“Maybe it’s all innocent. Maybe it’s all straight up,” Pompeo said during the Friday morning briefing. “But we and the people of Pennsylvania and the Americans who he will be representing as one of 100 members of the U.S. Senate voting on important national security matters need to understand the scope and depth of his relationship with the Turkish government.”.
Oz’s parents were Turkish immigrants to the United States, and he has maintained a dual-citizenship that he said earlier this year he would renounce if elected to the Senate from Pennsylvania. Pompeo, however, said Friday he was also referring to recent reports that Oz had voted from a Turkish consulate in the United States in a 2018 Turkish election, and that he has an ongoing contract to help market Turkish Airlines.
Pompeo conceded Friday that Oz has broken no laws and appears to have done nothing that would disqualify him from office.
But, he added, “This isn’t about whether it’s lawful, it’s about who is best suited to be the next United States senator from Pennsylvania that’s been represented by a patriotic American conservative for an awfully long time.”
The Oz campaign cleared the air, alright. But not necessarily in the way Pompeo meant.
“These are pathetic and xenophobic attacks... by David McCormick, who should be ashamed of himself,” said Oz campaign spokeswoman Brittany Yanick.
“Now that he lost President Trump’s endorsement, he’s resorted to sad and desperate attacks that are no different than the tropes used against Catholics and Jews (in past campaigns). Dr. Oz has already said when elected to the Senate he would renounced his citizenship. There is no security issue whatsoever, and David McCormick knows that.”
Oz’s federal financial disclosure forms show that in August 2020, his Oz Media company struck an endorsement deal with Turkish Airlines that included consulting services, certain media and in-flight film appearances. An unspecified payment was received from Lion Communications on behalf of the airline. He also holds several pieces of real estate in Turkey that had been owned by his father, and that are currently the subject of an estate dispute with other family members.
Oz has said in previous interviews that he has maintained the dual citizenship to make it easier to help care for his mother who has Alzheimer’s and lives there.
But Oz’s staff insisted to PennLive after the Pompeo briefing Friday that the candidate has never lobbied on behalf of the Turkish government and would have no conflicts in serving in the Senate.
As for the photo showing Oz voting, first reported by ABC News this week, Turkish voting records indicate that the 2018 presidential election was the first in which Oz participated. Yanick told ABC Oz did not plan to vote in the election, but decided to cast a ballot while at the consulate discussing his “humanitarian work on behalf of Syrian refugees in Turkey.”
“It was during an election season, so he voted,” Yanick said. She also claimed that Oz voted for opposition candidate Muharrem Ince in his unsuccessful campaign against Turkish President Recep Tayyep Erdogan. She denied that Oz’s vote amounted to “political involvement.”
“Voting in an election is far different from being actively engaged in the political work of the Turkish government, which Dr. Oz has never been involved with,” Yanick said, according to ABC’s report.
Turkey is a NATO member and strategic ally to the U.S. But in recent years, Turkish President Erdogan has demonstrated increasingly authoritarian behavior, jailing journalists and summarily silencing opposition voices. Erdogan has also strained ties with the U.S. by purchasing Russian weapons systems.
McCormick and Oz are among seven candidates vying for the Republican nomination in Pennsylvania’s open seat Senate race this year. They are battling against conservative commentator and author Kathy Barnette, 2018 lieutenant governor candidate Jeff Bartos, Trump’s U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands, and attorneys George Bochetto and Sean Gale.
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