Thread by @KlasfeldReports

There's a story making the rounds that the Trump admin planned to let Halkbank manager Hakan Atilla serve the rest of his sentence in Turkey in return for U.S. Pastor Andrew Brunson.

Fact check: Atilla would not have been eligible for transfer under the DOJ's program.

First, some background: Atilla was sentenced to 32 months imprisonment in connection with a massive money laundering scheme.

courthousenews.com/412829-2/

Here are the facts: The DOJ has participated in the International Prisoner Transfer Program since 1977. justice.gov/criminal-oeo/i…

From what I understand, Turkey is a signatory to the treaty with the U.S. theoretically allowing such a transfer to proceed, but here's why Atilla could not have been transferred. He has a pending appeal, and prosecutors have a pending cross-appeal.

bop.gov/policy/progsta…

As it says in bold on the Bureau of Prisons guidelines, these appeals make Atilla simply ineligible for transfer. It can't proceed as long as the matter's before Second Circuit.

That's setting aside the political fallout for the Trump White House for such a move.

Not that the political fallout for Trump should be discounted.

Remember: Trump's high-profile allies - Rudy Giuliani and Mike Mukasey - launched a quasi-diplomatic campaign between Washington and Ankara to scuttle the case against Reza Zarrab. courthousenews.com/on-the-bench-i…

Zarrab was the star witness against Atilla. That sort of swap would have been politically off-the-charts, even for the Trump White House.

Those calculations aside, letting Atilla serve out the remainder of his term back in Turkey wouldn't have been feasible, even procedurally.

Since I've been getting questions on this, a couple of follow-up thoughts on this.

Folks ask me, what if Atilla drops his appeal?

Not enough. Federal prosecutors would have to drop their cross-appeal, claiming the sentence is too late. Don't assume Trump can make that happen.

SDNY is famously independent, nicknamed the Sovereign District of New York. It's where Michael Cohen - Trump's fixer - is being criminally probed. Follow that thought experiment.

Hypothetically, suppose the White House pressures the DOJ, an arm of the executive branch. If so, some prosecutors may follow Preet's lead, i.e. get fired.

Advancing past Step 1: Getting the parties to drop their respective appeals would be a hurdle.

Then, there's the political calculus. Does Trump want to spend political capital drawing attention to a case where his prominent allies - Giuliani & Mukasey - tried to scuttle a multi-billion dollar sanctions case involving Iran at the height of the Russia probe & near midterms?

Upshot:

While theoretically possible under different circumstances, the Brunson-for-Atilla negotiations as reported should be treated with extreme skepticism, though not dismissed out of hand.

Worth watching Atilla's appellate docket to track its progress.

* "light," not late.

That's a Friday afternoon with insufficient coffee typo right there.

Just to be clear: By "extreme skepticism," I am referring to the credibility of the anonymously-sourced reports. As of now, the facts just don't wash.