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Eric Adams is corrupt. He’s also an idiot.

It turns out that the long awaited indictment against New York City mayor Eric Adams doesn't involve embezzlement or fraud or anything like that. It's just old-fashioned bribery. But very weird bribery.

The Feds allege that for the past decade Adams has been accepting lavish free travel and related luxury entertainment from . . .

A union? The mob? Fox News? Bzzz. The correct answer is the government of Turkey Türkiye.

The fuck? What does Türkiye want from the mayor of New York? Nothing in particular, it turns out. The bribes were just a retainer against possible future favors. They eventually called in their chits by asking Adams to kick the fire department's ass for holding up construction of a new consular building. Apparently Adams kicked the right asses and the building opened on time.

They also asked him to please not mention the Armenian genocide on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day—which must have been quite a trick if he said anything at all. I mean, what else do you talk about on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day?

There's other related mopery and dopery involving piles of cash from business moguls, all related to Türkiye. But as amusing as this penny ante corruption is, it's not the funniest part of the story. Investigators got hold of a telephone call where a Turkish Airlines manager is arranging a trip for Adams. "We can do it for 50 bucks," the manager says. No no, an Adams staffer says shrewdly. That's too obvious. Make it a thousand. No one will ever figure out that's a bribe.

Anna Merlan has a complete rundown of the hilarity here. We all knew Adams was a weird dude, but who knew he was such an incompetent and comical bribe taker?¹

¹Alleged bribe taker. Adams says he can explain everything.

52 thoughts on “Eric Adams is corrupt. He’s also an idiot.

  1. Joseph Harbin

    As I just wrote in another comment two posts ago, I am willing to concede that Adams is a corrupt pol and anything else bad you want to say about him.

    I think people need to take a second to ask why are we talking about him right now. Why is he the biggest story in NYC (understandably) and everywhere else (not so understandably)?

    It's not just happenstance. It seems very much a plan. Not necessarily the indictment, but the timing.

    Who filed the indictment? The Southern District of New York. Maybe you remember them from October 2016 with an explosive story that helped swing an election for president a few weeks later. Don't think for a second they're not trying to do it again. It's not subtle. Just like those photos you'll be seeing of Kamala Harris and Eric Adams together.

    We'll see how well it works. Not sure the best path for Dems here. Maybe have Hochul remove Adams, take the story off the front page, and show that Dems take out their trash while Republicans elevate theirs.

    1. kahner

      i highly doubt this will have any effect on the presidential election and that there was any intention to do so. no one is changing their vote because eric adams took bribes from turkey.

      1. Joseph Harbin

        Different year, different election. The effect on voters might be nothing, might be a little, who knows. Depends on play in the media and how the story develops.

        But, c'mon, the timing of the indictment can only be an accident if you were born Wednesday, September 25. This is the Southern District of New York, for chrisakes.

        Maybe the indictment fails to have any effect on the election (tbd), but pay attention at least to what the right-wing is trying to do, especially when using levers of government.

        1. rick_jones

          Given your opinion of the Southern District, I have to wonder if there would be any time you wouldn’t think an indictment such as this was politically motivated.

          1. Austin

            I don’t necessarily think this is trying to manipulate the election, but the Southern District could have done it on November 6th and had guaranteed zero impact on the election. I doubt letting Adams walk around uncharged for another 6 weeks would’ve led to more criminality than letting Trump walk around for years without being charged for his more serious crimes, but YMMV I guess.

            1. Jasper_in_Boston

              but the Southern District could have done it on November 6th and had guaranteed zero impact on the election.

              So, law enforcement is supposed to time their activities to help Democrats in general? Harris isn't the one being indicted, and Adams isn't running this year! Good grief.

              Strangely, I don't hear similar objections to Jack Smith's filing of evidence in the election subversion case. This pertains to a candidate who, unlike Adams, is actually running this year.

              https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/26/jack-smith-election-subversion-brief-00181331

              Paranoia isn't a good way to go through life. Also, Adams is as crooked as they come. And, yes, an idiot, as Kevin rightly points out.

          2. Joseph Harbin

            Don't put words in my mouth. I questioned the timing of the indictment, not the indictment itself.

            I'd say the vast majority of indictments (and their timing) are not politically motivated. Let's call it 99%. Are you saying that number is in fact 100%?

            Do you believe the timing of the reopening of the Clinton emails investigation was not politically motivated? Just 11 days before the 2016, well within the DOJ's 60-day rule to restrict public actions before an election.

            We're 40 days before an election now, and of course Adams is not the candidate running this year. But it's worth noting that the indictments of crimes from years ago comes now, exactly within the period the DOJ recognizes as a sensitive political time that should warrant restraint or delay till after an election.

            Just a coincidence? If this were not the SDNY, you might give them the benefit of the doubt. But this is the SDNY.

    2. Laertes

      The fun thing about griping about "the timing" is that you can always do it. It's calvinball--one way or another, you can always find a way to make "the timing" suspicious. You don't have to define it in advance, so you can always make a rule that suits.

      As for this being the top story everywhere? Let's take a quick survey of news sources:

      CNN: Top story is Helene. Adams comes in second.

      MSNBC: Adams is in the second tier of stories, but in a larger font than the top tier.

      Foxnews.com: Buried in a deep deep hole.

      NYT: Adams is the top story. (As it should be. That's the local paper.)

      WaPo: Top story. Just ever so slightly more prominent than Helene, which gets the same size placement, just below.

      LA Times: Top story is the RPV mess. Adams is the third second-tier story.

      Chicago Tribune: Buried. He's a couple pages down from the top, in a side link. Several dozen stories are placed more prominently.

      Baltimore Sun: Literally the last story on the home page. Buried even deeper than at the Chicago Tribune.

      On the whole, this is getting about the appropriate amount of attention. The high-profile mayor of our largest city being indicted is a big deal. Outlets with national reach mostly give it prominent placement. Regional papers outside the East coast barely mention it.

      Note also that the more conservative outlets (Foxnews, Chicago Tribune, LA Times) make less of the story than do CNN or MSNBC. Which cuts against the idea that the story is a carom shot ultimately aimed at Harris.

      1. Austin

        I think announcing all this about Adams on November 6th would’ve been less politically suspicious than doing so now. Just because there’s never a perfect “completely unsuspicious” date to do this kind of thing doesn’t mean there aren’t better dates than others to pick from. For example: I notice they don’t tend to do these kinds of things on Christmas either, so there does seem to be a Some Days Are Better For Indictments Than Others hierarchy in the FBI calendar… it’s reasonable to conclude 40ish Days Before An Election might not be as good as 364 Days Before An Election.

        1. Jasper_in_Boston

          I think announcing all this about Adams on November 6th would’ve been less politically suspicious than doing so now.

          Yes, no doubt you would find it less "politically suspicious." But the DOJ quite rightly doesn't organize its activities around mollifying the "political suspicions" of partisans. They've got business to attend to.

          This will have no effect on Harris's chances, nor, most likely, Democrats in general.

      2. Joseph Harbin

        On Day 1, I've seen plenty of the story. It's early. No one knows how it will play. But already Adams is blaming the Democratic Party for his indictment, so that's hardly convenient for D party candidates. Adams has GOP roots and they're showing.

    3. ScentOfViolets

      No, it's not. Anything but subtle I mean. I admit to being caught wrong-footed back in 2016. But this one is definitely a case of fool me once ...

    4. bw

      But that wasn't really the SDNY. There was no indication that DOJ prosecutors at SDNY, the people who indicted Eric Adams, were hankering to re-investigate Hillary Clinton's emails. Rather, the rogue FBI field office assigned to SDNY, in tandem with James Comey, were all over the idea.

      From ProPublica (boldface mine):

      On Sept. 26, after federal prosecutors in New York obtained a search warrant, the FBI collected Weiner’s iPhone, iPad and laptop. Agents began examining the computer — a silver, 15.6-inch 2015 Dell Inspiron 7000 — for any pictures, videos or other evidence involving Weiner’s teenage sexting partner. An agent sorting through the contents of the hard drive came across a jolting find: a State Department memo and some emails between Abedin and Hillary Clinton. The documents were not covered by the sex-crimes warrant, which meant that the FBI had no legal right to examine them.

      The presidential election was five weeks away.

      The agent went to the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York for guidance. Prosecutors there wanted no part of the email case, which had been staffed by a special team of agents, FBI analysts, and Justice Department lawyers working out of FBI headquarters, in Washington. The New York prosecutors told the agent to seek advice from that team. They said nothing to their own bosses at Justice Department headquarters.

      By Oct. 3, senior officials at the FBI — including Comey — had been alerted that the Weiner laptop contained an unknown number of Clinton emails.

      ***

      I mean, I guess you could make the argument that SDNY could have vociferously protested the BS the local FBI agent was trying to pull, and instead they lamely told the agent to go talk to DC. But they clearly weren't interested in getting in on the emails action, whether because they thought the whole case was nonsense, because they didn't want to start a bureaucratic turf war, or whether they correctly recognized the political Pandora's box they would be getting involved with by reopening things that close to Election Day.

    5. TheMelancholyDonkey

      So, your argument is that this would look less political if the SDNY delayed all of the proceedings, so that they occur closer to Adams's primary for reelection next spring?

  2. kahner

    i can't imagine all these bribes from various turkish sources are an anomaly. this def makes me think there's a lot more illegal stuff going in the adams administration.

  3. jte21

    Didn't the SCOTUS recently rule that all this kind of shit was perfectly legal? If Clarence Thomas can fly around for free on Harlan Crow's jet, why does hizzoner not get to wet his beak a little, too?

      1. OldFlyer

        and if Harris doesn't also carry the Senate, I'd expect a GOP led senate to cheerfully follow McConnell's strategy of zero judge appointments approved till the next GOP president

    1. NotCynicalEnough

      Between McDonnell vs US and Snyder vs US I don't see how it is possible to get a conviction for any kind of influence peddling. I'm surprised they manage to convict Menedez that 2nd time around but that was decided by a judge and jury based on common sense. It hasn't made it to the hallowed halls of the US Supreme Court yet where common sense doesn't apply.

      1. TheMelancholyDonkey

        This is a bit different than those cases. The payments don't meet the definition of "gratuities" laid out in Snyder, because they occurred before the alleged use of official power. And the SDNY at least alleges that they have strong evidence of a Turkish official explicitly linking the bribes to the approval of the skyscraper in communications with Adams.

    1. emjayay

      NYC is not going to sink into any ocean. But like all coastal port cities around the world (which are also obviously where a whole lot of people live and work), it just might shrink a whole lot around the edges when the oceans rise as they already have but at a far higher rate. And those cities obviously hold a whole lot of existing housing, offices, and other kinds of buidings and infrastructure..

      The good part is that Florida is almost surrounded by oceans and is really flat.

  4. SamChevre

    I have to say - taking bribes to get the NYC government to approve a certificate of occupancy for your building is very on-brand for New York.

  5. different_name

    Adams is just plain weird.

    But it is the same kind of weird as Cuomo had, and it looks a lot like Roger Stone-weird. The kind of weird that people like this can't seem to avoid giving off when they're doing hinky things.

    I've talked to other people who got the same vibe.

    1. kahner

      Turkey adopted its official name, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, known in English as the Republic of Turkey or more commonly known as Turkey, upon the declaration of the republic on 29 October 1923. In 2021, however, via the UN, Turkey changed its spelling to Türkiye.

    2. Laertes

      Per the State Department:

      "The official conventional long-form and short-form names remain “Republic of Turkey” and “Turkey”, respectively. “Republic of Türkiye” should be used in formal and diplomatic contexts."

    1. Yikes

      I will note, that putting aside asking for the "Adams Discount" - Turkish Airlines is now running the best price on business class to Europe (multiple cities), but the first stop is, always, Istanbul.

      And that is by design, they also do intentional one day layovers and pick up the hotel cost. Idea is to convince people Turkiye is fine to visit I presume.

      Check out Google flights.

      1. dfhoughton

        I love TMBG, but one of my Greek professors told me it was from the phrase "εις την πολιν" (various breathing marks and accents omitted; this sounds roughly like "ace tane polin'"), which means "into the city". It was the biggest city around, so the Greek population would say, as they do around NYC, "I'm going into the city". No name was necessary. The Turks took the phrase from the Greeks and reinterpreted it as the city's name.

        This was in the early 90s, so before John and John wrote the song, and I don't know how solid this etymology was. Perhaps professor ... I can remember his face but not his name ... was just speculating.

  6. cephalopod

    Every time there is an earthquake in Turkey I am reminded of their terrible building safety record. I did not realize they were so committed to shoddy construction they would resort to bribes to do it in other countries as well.

  7. lower-case

    wapo:

    Voting technology company Smartmatic and conservative cable channel Newsmax have reached a settlement, averting a defamation trial that would have begun Monday over allegations that Newsmax personalities and guests spread lies about the 2020 election and Smartmatic’s role in it.

  8. pjcamp1905

    "Eric Adams is corrupt. He’s also an idiot."

    What do you expect? He's a goddamn cop. There have been two former cops elected mayor. The other was William O'Dwyer, who had to resign just a few months into his second term due to what his obituary describes as "the biggest police corruption scandal in the city's history."

    All cops, in my experience, tend toward corruption and thuggery but the NYPD is in a class of its own. They literally turned their backs on Bill DeBlasio, apparently believing that the people had no right to choose their boss. They got in major trouble over the racist nature of their stop and frisk policy (almost 90% of people stopped were either black or Latino). They were ordered by a court to take certain actions to remediate this and make cops accountable for what they do. They just haven't bothered to comply. After all, they don't enforce the law. They ARE the law.

    So this doesn't surprise me at all. In fact, I kind of expected something like this eventually, a toxic mix of corruption and stupidity. He's a cop. Never elect a cop.

  9. emjayay

    Note: this is not really about race at all.

    Check out a photo or video of his bizarre outdoor press conference in the rain. The pathetic group of backers invited to stand behind him were crammed together under a canopy. All appear to be Black other than one White woman and one White man at the far edges. All of the top officials who already quit or are going to are Black, mostly if not all long time cronies including two brothers and one guy's girlfriend. His now 24 year old chief fundraiser who cleared close to $300K for herself and was the first to have her phone etc. seized is also Black.

    New York City is 26% Black.

    If this was Tammany Hall they would all be Irish. Same thing.

  10. emjayay

    Part of this is not about quid pro quo favors with Turkey but about the fact that NYC gives matching funds (maybe more than matching?) for individual campaign contributions. So a lot of actual corporate or rich guy contributions were fraudently split among employees or others.

    (My vagueness is because I didn't actually look things up.)

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