The Latest on Mayor Adams's Indictment

Title: The Latest on Mayor Adams's Indictment

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to the indictment of Mayor Adams. Perhaps the most important development over the weekend was the Reverend Al Sharpton coming out against Governor Hochul using her power to remove Adams from office if he won't resign. We'll get a take on the Adams situation now from Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation magazine and author of the book Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution. He hosts the podcast Contempt of Court. He has an article on The Nation's website called, "It's going to be hard for Eric Adams to swagger his way out of this mess." On Friday's show, we mentioned this tweet from Elie, which read, "The fact that Adams is the first sitting New York City mayor to face federal criminal charges actually says more about how law enforcement lets mayors of New York City get away with crime than anything else. Guess they decided to apply the rules to Adams. Can't imagine why," with a smile emoji. Elie, always good of you to come on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Elie Mystal: Hi, Brian. How are you doing? It's always nice to be able to talk about the Southern District of New York actually indicting people suspected of crime. That's fun to see.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, as opposed to certain former presidents who we will talk about a little bit later in the segment. Let's start with the part of the indictment that you wrote about that should anger New Yorkers the most, allegedly defrauding the taxpayers of New York City to get public matching funds for his 2021 campaign. Can you explain, for people who haven't gotten their heads around this yet, what that means?

Elie Mystal: Yes. New York City has a great program, right, which is called public matching funds. If you get a small dollar donation, a donation under $2,000, that donation is eligible to be matched by public funds. Our taxpayer dollars will go into your campaign coffers. It's meant to encourage candidates to take and solicit small dollar donations and to not be beholden to the super wealthy and the super rich donors. What Adams allegedly did was not only take money from foreign interests and foreign investors, which is illegal [unintelligible 00:02:25], he allegedly took the money and structured it in such a way so that they would be eligible for the small dollar matching donation public funds.

Like, if he got a $10,000 allegedly donation from a Turkish university, he structured that $10,000 to come out as multiple payments of $1,000, $2,000 so that those funds could be matched. The SDNY, the prosecutors allege that he stole, that he embezzled, that he defrauded New York out of millions of dollars by accessing our taxpayers' money in this illegal way. As a New Yorker, I feel like that's the thing that you can't come back from, because look, we can argue and talk about whether or not there should be foreign influence in the elections and what that looks like and whatever, but when you are structuring payments, again, allegedly, again, if it is proven, when you are structuring payments so that you are sticking your hands into the public coffers and abusing an objectively great program that we have here in this city, I think that's really hard to come back from.

Brian Lehrer: Eight to one matching dollars from the taxpayers for every small donation of $250 or less to prevent super rich guys like Michael Bloomberg from coming in and being able to buy the election, because if you raise money from small donors enough, the tax taxpayers are going to match you to the sky, eight to one. There's a question. I think one of the issues around this whole indictment that defenders of Eric Adams are starting to cite is, are these big things, are these really indictable crimes worthy of bringing down a mayor for?

I think one of his lawyers might have called it the other day, "This is the airline seat upgrade scandal," diminishing it in that way. On what you were just talking about, there's a question of how big a swindle of the taxpayers that would actually have been. There's this today from the news organization, The City. It says, "The grand jury indictment of Mayor Eric Adams kicks off-- the text of the indictment-- kicks off with a stunning $10 million figure that has captured headlines, dominated cable news shows, and led many to conclude that the Turkish donations at the core of the indictment directly yielded $10 million for Adams.

That $10 million figure is the entirety of public matching funds granted Adams 2021 campaign by the city Campaign Finance Board. It says the indictment actually lists about $26,000, so I'm going to say only $26,000, in allegedly illegal foreign contributions, not counting matching funds the campaign sought. Elie, I did the math on the eight-to-one public matching funds, and that would be around $200,000 of taxpayer money. A lot for most people's budgets, of course, but by election fraud standards, and compared to the $10 million figure of the total matching funds that's been in the headlines, it's not that much. It could almost be for a fine, rather than an indictment, one could argue. How do you see that number in legal terms, if you've gotten your head around that same number?

Elie Mystal: Yes. So I can spin that a couple of different ways. One, another way of looking at it is that he's gotten $10 million of public matching funds. Some of those funds were legally obtained that we know about, because if he's structuring the payments when he's taking money from Turkey, is he also structuring the payments when he's taking money from other wealthy donors in a way that the investigators didn't indict him for? Like, as in the indictment, there are allegations that he was also taking money from corporate donors above the maximum, structuring it in this way to avoid campaign finance laws.

Some of that money is in there as well. You can massage the numbers in various ways, but Brian, that argument fundamentally bothers me to the core. The idea that it's not a real crime unless it's super big, right. That, oh, you can have a little bit of corruption, you can do a little bit of graft, but you can't do a lot of-- like what? Where's the line? The idea that laws don't matter if they're violated, as long as they're only violated a little, for our public officials. This is not-- we're not talking about, oh, I don't know, shooting guns into a crowded subway to get a turnstile jump. All right? We're not talking about being an idiot and firing your weapon on a crowded subway platform to capture and stop a low level fare jumper.

We're talking about a mayor of the city, official of public trust, potentially committing major crimes. If that's the scope of what we're talking about, it doesn't matter to me if he stole $2, $10 or $10 million. If he embezzled money, if he stole money from the people, that should be enough, as a mayor of New York City to be a disqualifying argument.

Brian Lehrer: Now we know where you stand on that police shooting in the subway the other day of the fare beater with a knife, et cetera. You wrote that Adams' most likely defense will be to say that he didn't know where all that money was coming from and to blame his staff for soliciting illegal campaign contributions. You've read the examples of evidence from the indictment that seek to connect him directly. Do you have an impression of how strong that evidence is?

Elie Mystal: Yes, this is the point, Brian. The whole, "I only did a little bit of graft," is not a legal defense. "My staff is the one who did the illegal stuff and I didn't know anything about it," is a legal defense. Now the question is whether or not it's a good one. That's where the airline tickets become important. To the question that you asked earlier, we can argue and we can joke about how getting an upgrade from economy class to business class isn't that big of a deal in the grand scope of graft in the public discourse.

I might disagree with that, but the point is, if you can show that Adams paid for economy class airline tickets, yet was flying in first class and business class, then it becomes very hard for Adams to argue, "I didn't know that I paid for one ticket and got a much better plane ride." That doesn't pass this common sense smell test. Most people, when they're flying in business class, know it, and most people know when they paid for an economy class ticket and got something a lot better than that. That's going to be used to attack Adam's arguments that he didn't know about this. This was all his staff and what have you.

When you ask how strong the evidence is, I mean, we haven't had a trial. We don't know, we don't know if he has any exonerating evidence, but we got text where he's talking about how he always deletes texts from certain people. We've got staff literally saying, oh, quote me a real price because $50 for a round trip business class airfare to Turkey, that doesn't pass the smell test. How about $1,000?

Brian Lehrer: You're not making that up. You point to what you call a particularly hilarious text message exchange that's recorded in the indictment. I'll read that from your article. Adams staffer, "How much does he owe?" This is about a plane ticket. "How much does he owe? Please, let them call me and I will make the payment." The airline manager says it is very expensive because it is last minute. I'm working on a discount. Adams staffer, "Okay, thank you." Airline manager, "I'm going to charge $50. $50 for the airline ticket.

Adams staffer, "No." Airline manager, "That would work, wouldn't it? Adam Staffer, "No, dear. $50? What? Quote a proper price." Airline manager, "How much should I charge? Adams staffer, "His every step is being watched right now. $1,000 or so. Let it be somewhat real. We don't want them to say he's flying for free. At the moment, the media's attention is on Eric." How do you hear that text message exchange? One could hear it in the most generous possible way to Adams, that they don't want the zero dollar, the $50 upgrade. They want to pay at least $1,000 for the ticket.

Elie Mystal: It's a flight to Turkey, Brian. How much could it cost? $1,000. That's where we are with these people. Look, the actual airfare, if he had paid the regular price for it, is $15,000. Even his $1,000 does not get him in the ballpark. Now, imagine a trial. Now we're asking Adams, or he probably won't take the stand in his own defense. We're asking people about this exchange. What is the Adams defense going to be? That Eric Adams paid $1,100 for a round trip ticket to Turkey in business class and thought that that was the fair price for the ticket and didn't understand that he was getting almost $14,000 in extra flight value? That's going to be his legal defense.

Now, there might be some people on a jury that would believe that, like in [unintelligible 00:12:36] , but I don't think a jury of New Yorkers is going to believe that somebody just wouldn't know the difference between a $1,000 economy class trip and a $15,000 1st class trip. I just don't think that [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: That exchange that I just read does indicate, oh, no, we know you're giving him a super huge discount. Just don't give him that much of an obvious super huge discount as a favor. Let's get to the role of Al Sharpton in this story politically. We're going to play a clip of him from Saturday here asking Governor Hochul not to remove Adams and to allow him due process. Listen.

Al Sharpton: The governor should not be pressured into removing Eric Adams from being the mayor. There is no precedent for that.

Brian Lehrer: Why do you think Sharpton is getting involved? Do you think he sees a racial double standard here? To your tweet the other day, which I guess I should read again, do you?

Elie Mystal: Yes, Yes, I do. I agree with Reverend Al on this particular point. Right. I do not think that Eric Adams is being prosecuted because he is Black. However, the fact that Eric Adams is the first New York City mayor to be charged with federal crimes does not mean he is the first New York City mayor to commit federal crimes. I did not fall off the Trump truck last week. I do not believe that in the grand, corrupt history of this city, this is the first mayor to have committed federal crimes. Jimmy Walker was there, was a thing. FDR actually almost used his gubernatorial powers to remove him until Jimmy Walker resigned, but he was never federally indicted.

John Lindsay, I seem to remember a smiling man, that he was never charged with a federal crime. If you want to tell me that John Lindsay wasn't on the take, I will try to sell you a bridge to Brooklyn. All right, so we have not prosecuted former white New York City mayors for corruption before. We are prosecuting the second Black mayor of New York City for corruption, and I don't think that is an accident. I agree with Sharpton that Governor Hochul should not be the person to force Eric Adams out.

I understand that she technically has legal authority, but again, Franklin, FDR technically had the legal authority to force Jimmy Walker out. He didn't. George Pataki technically had the legal authority to force Rudy Giuliani out. If you don't think Rudy Giuliani committed federal crimes, I mean, where have you been the last [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: He wasn't indicted while he was [crosstalk].

Elie Mystal: He was never indicted. Right. Former governors have not used their power to force out previous mayors. I don't think Hochul should use hers to force out Adams, just based on the indictment. Now, if he gets convicted, I think that's a slightly different story. But based on the indictment, no, he should get due process. All that said, Brian, all that said, I think Adams should resign. I think that the honorable thing to do in this situation is to resign because the city of New York deserves a mayor that people know works for them and not for the government of Turkey.

Look, this goes to-- Look, I think everybody should resign. I think that the bar for resignation should be relatively low, again, for our public officials. These are people with the public trust. These are people who are supposed to represent all of us. At the point where you're embroiled in scandal, I think it is absolutely appropriate for you to step back and resign and let the next person do the job. I know we're in New York, so I shouldn't quote Bill Belichick, but next man up, right? There are other people in New York who are capable of doing the job. Let somebody else who can focus on being mayor of New York City, be mayor of New York City and you focus on your difficult legal defense.

If you're exonerated, great. Does that mean that you-- if you're exonerated, does that mean you shouldn't resign? No. If you're exonerated, you resign. Then you can do something else to help the city after you're done with your legal troubles. The idea that the only thing, the only most important thing that you can do is to continue being mayor because you're not going to be-- like, what is that? That's an insane level of self aggrandizement.

One of the analogies that I've made, it's like, if there's a fire in my house, I don't stay in the house to show the fire who's boss, right? I'm not going to let this fire push me out of my own home. No, I'll leave. I let the professionals handle it. If the fire gets put out, great, awesome. I win. Right? The idea that we personally, that the officials personally, that they are the most important people as opposed to their office, as opposed to their job, as opposed to the function that they serve, I think that is just an insane idea. I think Adams should resign, but that's not Hochul's call.

Brian Lehrer: Here's Adams yesterday speaking at a church in the Bronx.

Mayor Eric Adams: You hear the small number of loud people saying, "Well, he should step down." No, I'm going to step up. [applause] I'm going to step up. I'm going to step up. I'm not going to resign. I'm going to reign.

Brian Lehrer: Jim in the Bronx, you're on WNYC with Elie Mystal. Hi, Jim.

Jim: Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I want to respond to this issue of supposed fraud regarding the Campaign Finance Board. I was an original member of that board back in the late '80s, appointed by then Speaker Peter Vallone from Queens to the now defunct Liberal Party. I can tell you, I was on the board for like five, seven years. That law then was extremely complex. We had constant violations of candidates at all levels, city council, citywide offices that constantly ran into violations of the rules and were fined and had to correct things. Nothing ever raised to the level of a federal indictment. I don't know the details of what Adams' campaign did or did not do.

I'm sure the law is very different now than it was 30 plus years ago when I was on that board. When I heard about this indictment, it occurred to me, it's going to be very difficult to prove deliberate fraud. We'll see, but I definitely, when I learned a little bit about the details of this indictment, I said, okay, we'll see how this works out in court. I'm very skeptical of this provability, given my experience with that board, again, many years ago.

Brian Lehrer: Jim, thank you very much.

Elie Mystal: That's a great point. Look, one of the things your caller brings up that I brought up in my article, and it's the key to the whole case. You have to show intent. You have to show that he deliberately did it, as your caller said. You have to show that he did it with knowledge of what he was doing. From the face of the indictment, the text messages are pretty damning. Right? It certainly seems like the staffers who flipped on him knew exactly what they were doing, but jumping from the staffers knew exactly what they were doing and did it with knowing intent, to Adams knew what his staff was doing and ordered them with knowing intent.

That, that's a bit of a jump, and that's going to be what the trial is about. I'm not saying-- I don't read the indictment as a slam dunk. Let me put it like this. I don't read it as a slam dunk legally. I think, again, from a, from a public corruption standpoint, this is terrible for Adams. I think that this is terrible for New York City from a legal perspective. No, he's got a defense. What's interesting, Brian, is that he hasn't made his defense yet. Right. I mean, even in that clip. Right. Like, I don't.

He's going to reign. I don't know what that means. That's not a legal defense. Right. I'm going to step up. Not step-- again. I have no idea what that means. He hasn't actually made his legal defense yet. So far, Adams is acting like it's all lies, like it's all just made up, and that's not going to fly. At some point, Adams is going to have to sit in a court of law with his lawyers and actually explain where this money came from, how it got into his campaign coffers, and who knew what when, and that's what the case is going to be about.

Brian Lehrer: To set up our next caller, because I think he's going to be on point. I'm going to reread your tweet from Friday, which I read at the beginning of the segment, which is a while ago now, when you wrote, "The fact that Adams is the first sitting New York City mayor to face federal criminal charges actually says more about how law enforcement lets mayors of New York City get away with crime than anything else. Guess they decided to apply the rules to Adams. Can't imagine why, with a smile emoji. David in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. David, thank you for calling in. Hello.

David: Hi. I was wondering, because I'm sort of fuzzy on it and hopefully you can speak to it. I do remember there were at least two fines, I believe, one is from the FCC and one from the Campaign Finance Board. At least half a million dollars that was misused on travel with NYPD when he was running for the White House with Bill de Blasio. I'm wondering if that speaks to the double standard and if you can explain why they might indict here and not there.

Brian Lehrer: David, thank you. There was a federal Southern District of New York US Attorney, Preet Bharara at the time, I believe, investigation of Bill de Blasio, but they didn't indict. You want to compare and contrast in particular with that one?

Elie Mystal: [laughs] I respect Preet a lot. With that in mind, I am going to give Preet the benefit of the doubt and say that he investigated possible corruption. He went where the facts went and he did not have any, he did not have an indictable offense against de Blasio. One of the things about being a prosecutor is that you don't want to just bring an indictment. You don't just want to bring charges. You want to get a conviction. You want to bring charges that are going to hold up. Preet was excellent at that. He's the best lawyers, prosecutors in the country. When Preet charges you, he wins.

If he didn't charge you, I would imagine that he didn't have the evidence to charge de Blasio. I think that he didn't have evidence against de Blasio. I think that if he did have evidence, he would have brought charges. I think Damian Williams, who, by the way, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, happens to be a Black man, by the way, I think he did have evidence that he thought that he could bring against Adams. In fairness, Damian Williams has been out here charging quite a few people. He has been kind of on it [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: Menendez, former Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin. Those are both his.

Elie Mystal: Right. Those are both his. He's been on it on the public corruption front, which I think, again, is good. I think that we should take public corruption of our elected officials seriously. His charges, the Benjamin thing was a little bit, the Menendez thing seems to be going a little bit better in terms of his ability to get convictions. I think you have to give Williams versus Preet the benefit of the doubt and say that, okay, Williams had the evidence against Adams, Preet didn't have it against de Blasio. When I'm talking about, though, when I say the first, it's also like, you've got to think about the larger context of New York City and the larger history that we have with our mayors.

This is the city that produced Boss Tweed. We are not a city that is above corruption by any means. We're not Chicago [laughs], but New York does not have a sterling record with this stuff. Yet, all of our other mayors escaped indictment. Only Adams has been federally charged. I do think that that is significant. I don't think that absolves Adams or any-- I don't think that-- I don't think that helps Adams one bit. I don't think that that helps him in the public discourse. I don't think it helps him in the court of public opinion, and I certainly don't think it helps him in a court of law.

He's going to have to defend his actions based on the evidence of his innocence and exoneration that he can bring to bear. I'm interested to hear, this is what I was talking about earlier, Brian. I'm interested to hear what his actual defense is going to be because we haven't heard it yet.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, I want to throw in one other thing. We just have a minute left. I'm going to play one more clip of Sharpton, because Adams is in the court of public opinion. I know this isn't a defense in a court of law saying, "The Biden administration is just out to get me. I've been a target because I've been criticizing their migrant policy." Trump is apparently trying to make hay on that and say, "See, the Biden Justice Department goes after the political enemies." Here, Sharpton over the weekend on that.

Al Sharpton: If I was facing a federal trial, the last person I want to speak up for me is somebody convicted of 34 felonies.

Brian Lehrer: 20 seconds. Elie, your last thought to that point?

Elie Mystal: The charges that Adams is facing are similar to the charges that Paul Manafort faced from federal authorities. If you remember, Paul Manafort was convicted, but Paul Manafort ain't in jail. Paul Manafort is not in jail because he is full MAGA and he got a pardon from, wait for it, President Donald Trump. I think that Adams' best public defense is going to end up being going full MAGA, kissing Trump's boots, hoping he gets elected, and then begging for presidential pardon like former democratic governor Rod Blagojevich. I think that is the future for Adams, and I think that we're just going to have to sit and watch it happen slowly and painfully.

Brian Lehrer: Well, that could start a whole other segment, but it ends this one with Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation magazine and author of the book Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution. He hosts the podcast Contempt of Court. Elie, thank you very much.

Elie Mystal: Thanks so much for having me, Brian.

 

 

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