CNN’s Elie Honig Breaks Down Evidence Prosecution Will Use In Attempt To Convict Eric Adams
CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig broke down the evidence prosecutors will point to on Thursday in their attempt to convict Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams in relation to the bribery and fraud allegations…
CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig broke down the evidence prosecutors will point to on Thursday in their attempt to convict Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams in relation to the bribery and fraud allegations levied against him.
The Southern District of New York issued a 57-page federal indictment alleging that Adams “sought and accepted improper valuable benefits” from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official for nearly a decade. Prosecutors will have to prove “simply and specifically” how Adams violated the law by allegedly taking campaign contributions through straw donations in 2021 and returning the favor to foreign nationals, Honig said.
“The challenge that prosecutors will have here, and you just saw the U.S. Attorney grappling with this, is how to explain this simply and specifically and I think the SDNY’s theory of what’s laid out in the indictment is like this: Eric Adams when he was mayor and before that, when he was Brooklyn Borough president, took 2 types of benefits from foreign nationals. First of all, he accepted campaign donations from those foreign nationals, which you’re not allowed to do, which were funneled through fake or strewed donors,” Honig said.
“Second of all, the indictment alleges that Eric Adams saw and received free business travel, discounted business travel worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, that’s the quid part of it,” Honig continued. “And then the quo, what he delivered in exchange for that is essentially Turkish nationals wanted to get this skyscraper called the Turkish House, it had been built, it was a controversial issue in Turkey, it was extraordinarily expensive, they wanted to get it approved to open by the time a group of Turkish leaders, diplomats in the United States and so they asked Eric Adams to pressure the FDNY to approve of the building quicker than they would otherwise.”
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Adams has been