Does the indictment of Eric Adams represent a bona fide prosecution of a dishonest politician, or is it mainly retribution against a political opponent by a deeply corrupt DOJ and FBI? As several commenters on yesterday’s post noted, we have come to a very sad point when our first thought upon an indictment of a politician is that it may well represent the deep state using its powers to take out a political opponent. But after four years of the deeply politicized Biden-Harris-Garland Justice Department, that’s where we are. And it is entirely appropriate for the citizenry to evaluate the present indictment in light of the DOJ’s conduct throughout the course of this administration.
Unlike my usual approach, I wrote the post yesterday immediately after learning about and reading the indictment, and before allowing any time for things to settle down. Today many other voices have weighed in. In this post I’ll consider a few of them. But the bottom line is, there is every reason to believe that this indictment is mostly politically motivated, and has little or nothing to do with fighting real corruption.
Let’s look first at a few things that might at first seem to support the bona fides of the indictment. The New York Post today in its news pages devotes six pages to the charges. Most of that coverage just runs through and highlights the allegations, thus giving them substantial credibility, whether deserved or not.
Here is an example. The headline for the article on page 4 is “Fancy flights, $10M for elex in fed raps.” (The online headline is different, but similarly references the allegation that Adams “fraudulently got $10M in public funds.”). Is there really a charge in this indictment that Adams fraudulently got $10 million in public campaign funds? If so, that would be a big deal, perhaps even on a par with Biden’s collecting $10 million from the government of China. But in fact the $10 million figure is almost entirely unrelated to the actual charges in the case and was clearly thrown in in a disgraceful effort to prejudice Adams.
The allegation about the $10 million in fraudulent campaign funds comes from paragraph 3 of the indictment. The background is that New York City has a program of matching public funds for contributions to politicians running in local races, including for Mayor. The match only applies if the donor is a resident of the jurisdiction where the race takes place, and only applies for donations up to $250. One of the charges in this indictment is that the Adams campaign collected matching funds where the donors were “straw” donors and the real donors did not qualify for the match. Here is the relevant text of the indictment containing the $10 million figure:
ADAMS and those working at his direction falsely certified compliance with applicable campaign finance regulations despite ADAMS’s repeated acceptance of straw donations, relying on the concealed nature of these illegal contributions to falsely portray his campaigns as law-abiding. As a result of those false certifications, ADAMS’s 2021 mayoral campaign received more than $10,000,000 in public funds.
Did you get the impression from that that Adams fraudulently got $10 million in public matching funds. That was clearly the intent, and the headline writer for the Post fell for it. But in fact if you go through the detailed allegations of the indictment, you will find that the specific amounts of “straw” donations alleged come to at most a few tens of thousands of dollars. Most of the donations specifically mentioned came in increments of $2000, of which only the first $250 gets the match. So the amounts of fraudulently obtained matching funds based on the improper donations alleged in the indictment would again be in the range of a few tens of thousands of dollars.
The $10 million figure is not the amount of matches for these alleged improper donations, but rather is the total amount of matching funds that Adams received during the campaign. The basis for putting the $10 million figure in the indictment, never stated clearly, is apparently that the Adams campaign filed a certification as to its claim for matching funds attesting that all claims were proper. Therefore, somehow, the whole $10 million would be tainted if even one donor were fake.
Notably, despite throwing in the $10 million figure for maximum prejudice against the defendant, there is no charge in the indictment for fraudulently obtaining New York City matching campaign funds. That is undoubtedly because the federal prosecutors have no jurisdiction to prosecute violations of New York State and City campaign finance law. The only campaign finance violations charged in the indictment are violations of federal law prohibiting foreigners from donating to U.S. political campaigns.
Among the outlets giving some credence to the indictment, there is National Review from this morning. Excerpt:
Damian Williams, the Biden-appointed U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), announced a five-count corruption indictment. In a series of schemes tracing back a decade, when he was Brooklyn borough president, Adams is alleged to have put his growing political influence and potential on sale, particularly to foreign bidders. The most energetic of these were from Turkey — emissaries of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s unsavory regime and well-heeled businesspeople adjacent to it.
NR expresses skepticism that the indictment is a political hit job, on the basis that the indictment has potential political risks for the Harris campaign:
Adams’s prosecution, and the certainty that he would accuse the administration of vindictiveness, could only call more attention to Vice President Harris’s role in the collapse of border security — not what she would have wanted six weeks before Election Day.
Maybe, but I doubt it. More likely, the thinking is that the Adams indictment neutralizes him as a critic of the border policy. And meanwhile, the Democratic Party left here in New York hates Adams for many reasons, ranging from his stance on the migrant crisis to his modest support of law and order to the overriding fact that his occupation of the mayoralty prevents them having one of their true believers (like Jumaane Williams or Brad Lander) hold the office.
While the New York Post’s news pages fell for the scam of the $10 million allegation in the indictment, the editorial page and columnists are appropriately more skeptical. In a column today, the excellent Jonathan Turley compares the conduct of Adams alleged here to the conduct of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in connection with the Met Gala three years ago:
[M]any populist politicians tend to be a pampered class who expect to be feted in the best quarters as they speak as the “voice of the people.” That was captured most vividly by NYC Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sashayed at the Met Gala in a designer dress reading “tax the rich.” It was a scene with a crushing irony. The dress itself was worth more than some people make in a year and it was just “loaned” to AOC despite being made specifically for her. She also did not pay for her ticket, which would cost $35,000.
The $35,000 comped Met Gala ticket, and the specially-made dress (probably another $25,000 or so) come to a total not dramatically less than the amounts alleged with respect to Adams here. Has AOC ever done any act as Congresswoman that could be construed as a “quid pro quo” because it somehow benefited the Metropolitan Museum, or perhaps Condé Nast (main sponsor of the Met Gala)? I’ll bet if you had a few million dollars to investigate you could find something at least as significant as Adams expediting a fire inspection for the Turkish consulate. Of course, the FBI and DOJ have no interest. AOC is one of their team.
I’m not contending that Adams is pure as the driven snow. He may well have committed unforced errors, and if so, he will deserve his fate. As I’ve said many times, the entire business of politics is inherently corrupt. But some are much more corrupt than others.
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