Using taxpayer money to attempt to foster better ties with a nation that, at the time, was a major US partner in the Middle East. During that period, Turkey was a respectable trading partner known to invest in foreign infrastructure and a rising nation being considered for EU entry. 

And, in all honesty, that coup Gulen is always criticized, without proof, was most likely staged as an excuse for the President to "justifiably" arrest all his political enemies without trial. Seeing as, he arrested all his political enemies without trial the very day it ended; thousands of judges, officers, religious leaders, businessmen and elected officials with no evidence that they participated only that they'd criticized him for chipping away at Turkey's human rights and secularism.