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Yesterday was not a bright and shiny day for mayors of New York City. At the same time Rudy Giuliani was losing his law license in D.C., current mayor Eric Adams was learning what he's been charged with. The indictment is pretty brutal, and has effectively made Adams a man without friends.
On Wednesday, reporting suggested that Adams faced one felony charge. As it turns out, he was actually indicted on five counts, some dating back to before his time as mayor. The charges are: (1) Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud, Federal Program Bribery, and to Receive Campaign Contributions By Foreign Nationals; (2) Wire Fraud; (3 and 4) Solicitation of a Contribution by a Foreign National; and (5) Bribery. The charges are unusually detailed, by the standards of an indictment, and are backed up with substantial evidence. The document runs a total of 57 pages.
If you are not a lawyer and/or you do not want to read a somewhat dry legal document, the basic contention that prosecutors are making is that Adams was in bed with the Turkish government. Some of the alleged misdeeds, while clearly illegal and problematic, are also kind of amusing. For example, Adams was given free flights on Turkish Airways, anytime he wanted, and so he bent over backwards to use them. On one trip, from Chicago to Paris, he flew Chicago-Istanbul-Paris, adding almost 2,000 miles to his itinerary. He also bent over backwards to stay at hotels owned by Turkish interests, because he got steeply discounted rates (90%-95% off). Of course, Adams disclosed none of this.
The Turks also gave money to Adams, both directly and in the form of campaign donations. It is illegal for foreign nationals to give money to political candidates in New York, just as it is illegal for them to give money to federal candidates. No problem; Adams allegedly used U.S. citizens to "make" the donations, thus effectively laundering the money. Further, New York has a matching funds program, so for every $1 in illegal donations, Adams was also getting $8 from the city of New York.
What, on earth, would the Turkish government want or need from a city mayor? Well, like Nate Silver (and unlike us), they thought that Adams had big things in his future, and might be moving up the ladder, perhaps all the way to the White House. Beyond that, there are lots of little favors that a city official might do for a well-heeled foreign country. For example, Adams is alleged to have intervened, and to have persuaded New York officials to call off a planned safety inspection of the Turkish consulate in NYC.
What it boils down to is that Adams is in all kinds of trouble. As we have noted many times, the feds don't go after someone unless they are certain of their case. That's not just a general preference, it's Department of Justice policy, meant to make sure that the government gets maximum bang for its buck. We think it's fair to assume that the feds are doubly and triply careful to make sure their case is tight before they go after someone as prominent as the sitting mayor of New York City. Reading the indictment does nothing to make us rethink that assumption.
On top of that, the current indictment is just the first one to actually come to fruition. There are at least four other investigations involving Adams; the one that looks to be the most dangerous for him involves similar allegations to the Turkey indictment, except involving the government of China. And these are just the investigations that are publicly known; there could be others.
In our Adams item yesterday, written before details of the indictment were publicly known, we proposed that Adams is pretty close to being a Democratic version of Donald Trump. Well, in his press conference yesterday, the Mayor declared that he was only targeted because Joe Biden is using the Department of Justice to target enemies of the administration. Sound familiar?
This sort of conspiratorial thinking is nonsense, of course. In fact, Adams is at least the seventh prominent Democrat to be indicted since Joe Biden became president, joining former senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, former representative T.J. Cox of California, current representative Henry Cuellar of Texas, former Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum, Illinois state representative Michael J. Madigan and First Son Hunter Biden. That does not read like a list of enemies, it reads like a list of dubious operators. After seeing the actual indictment, The Washington Post further took a sledgehammer to the conspiratorial thinking, explaining that phony prosecutions do not involve this quantity of detailed evidence. Heck, after the indictment came out, even Fox News, which had previously been parroting the Adams-as-martyr narrative, had to change course, and to admit that the indictment is very solid and very substantive.
So, that is the legal situation. Now the politics. Adams is no longer a player in Democratic politics; he's not going to be elected to some other office, he's not going to be used as a surrogate for the White House or some other Washington concern, he's not going to be asked to campaign or appear at rallies for Democratic candidates. He's done for. However, not unlike the dynamics we saw with "George Santos," he does have the potential to be an anchor around the necks of other Democrats, particularly those in New York. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who never, ever misses an opportunity like this, has already held a press conference where she used the Adams indictment as evidence of the Democrats' "cult of corruption."
Democratic politicians are very sensitive to this (and tend to be broadly anti-corruption, on top of that), and so a huge number of them are calling for Adams to resign. That includes many city officials, such as New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. It includes many members of the New York State legislature, such as State Sens. Zellnor Myrie and Brad Hoylman. It includes members of the New York City Council, such as Councilman Lincoln Restler. And it includes many members of Congress. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is the highest-profile, but the loudest might be the members running for election/re-election in swingy New York districts, who don't want to come up short just because the major of New York City turned out to be a(n alleged) crook.
Will Adams actually resign? He certainly does not seem the type. That said, even if he tries to hold on, he might not be able to do it. Although he is the first sitting mayor ever to be indicted (which is saying something, given how many shady mayors NYC has had), the city charter anticipates a situation like this. There is a procedure by which Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) can remove Adams of her own volition. And if she doesn't do it, maybe because he's an ally, or maybe because he might spill some dirt on her, then it is also possible for a five-member committee made up of the lead counsel to the Corporation of the City of New York, the New York City comptroller, the City Council speaker, one of the deputy mayors (with the mayor getting to make the pick), and the borough president with the longest consecutive service. It takes four of the five to remove Adams, which could be tricky, because one of the posts (lead counsel to the Corporation of the City of New York) is currently vacant.
Since Adams was already historically unpopular even before the indictments (the lowest approval rating of any mayor since approval polls began to be conducted in the 1980s), there was already a long list of Democrats champing at the bit for the chance to take him on in next year's reelection campaign. That includes the aforementioned Lander and Hoylman, along with State Sen. Jessica Ramos and former city comptroller Scott Stringer. There is also talk that former governor Andrew Cuomo might throw his hat into the ring. If Adams was to be removed, then New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams would take over on an interim basis, and then there would be a special election to pick a permanent replacement. All of the wannabe mayors would be pretty happy with that outcome, since it would significantly reduce the amount of time available for additional contenders to jump in.
So, it's quite the soap opera. And with control of the House likely to be decided by just a few seats, it's a soap opera with potential national implications. (Z)