George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Friday that Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams has several possible defenses at his disposal to fight fraud and bribery allegations levied against him in a federal indictment.
The Southern District of New York issued a 57-page federal indictment alleging that Adams “sought and accepted improper valuable benefits” from wealthy foreign nationals and at least one Turkish government official during his time as the Brooklyn Borough president and as a mayoral candidate. Turley said on “Fox & Friends” that there is not much “there there” in the indictment, arguing there is “less than meets the eye.”
“There is certainly less than meets the eye once you begin to look at these charges,” Turley said. “You know, they for example say there was a quid pro quo where the mayor intervened to speed along a fire inspection approval process for a Turkish consulate, but you can say look, that’s what mayors do. This is a city with a lot of diplomats and we want to avoid diplomatic problems, including the arrival of the president of that country, so he has defenses to say there wasn’t any quid pro quo here.”
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While Adams served as the Brooklyn Borough president, he allegedly pressured the New York City Fire Department to speed up the process of approving the construction of a Turkish consular building without a fire inspection in exchange for receiving free or discounted travel to several international locations by Turkish nationals, according to the indictment. A Turkish official allegedly sent Adams straw donations to his mayoral campaign.
Adams allegedly failed to disclose the travel benefits on his annual financial disclosures, according to the indictment.
“The most damaging is probably the allegations of solicitation of foreign contributions, but we have to see how much knowledge he had that $100,000 are largely upgrades in hotels, which certainly don’t make him look good,” Turley said. “But I think the biggest problem he’s gonna have is the U.S. Attorney’s office was very aggressive yesterday and basically warned people around him, ‘we’re gonna be indicting others, so you better cooperate.’ And they’re trying to build a case with his associates because they know those witnesses are very damaging in front of a jury.”
Adams has been charged with “conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and to receive campaign contributions by foreign nationals,” along with one count of wire fraud, two counts of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national and one count of bribery, the indictment reads.
The New York City mayor said on Thursday that the indictment is part of a retaliation effort by President Joe Biden’s administration due to him criticizing their “broken immigration policies.”
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Fox News)
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