[2] Kian was a member of the Board of Directors of the Export–Import Bank of the United States from 2006 to 2011,[3][4] after being nominated by President George W. Bush and receiving Senate confirmation.

[5] Kian was a partner of retired United States Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn in the Flynn Intel Group and worked with the 2016 incoming Trump administration's transition team on matters relating to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

[8][9] On December 17, 2018, several months after Flynn entered into a cooperation agreement with the Special Counsel's office, and two weeks after Flynn pleaded guilty in federal court for lying to the FBI, Kian and Kamil Ekim Alptekin were indicted in US federal court.

Kian was charged with illegally acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government and for lobbying the United States on behalf of Turkey to extradite Fethullah Gülen, who lives in the U.S., to Turkey, where Gülen was blamed for orchestrating a failed coup in 2016.

[15] However, on September 24, 2019, Judge Anthony Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia dismissed the indictment against Bijan Rafiekian, citing insufficient evidence.