The Details of Mayor Adams's Indictment

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. On this day, after Mayor Adams was indicted on bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign contributions, we'll get legal analysis and political analysis. The politics first. Governor Hochul could remove the mayor. You've heard that probably. She and the mayor are close political allies, but in a statement yesterday, to my eye, the governor seemed to imply that she would remove him if he doesn't resign in the next few days. Some of her exact words were, "I expect the mayor to take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well served by their leaders." The governor said this.

Governor Hochul: It's critically important that we continue to maintain the confidence of New Yorkers. They are anxious right now. I can feel it. I know this. Anything I can do as the leader of this great state to assure them that they are in good hands. We will make sure we get through this.

Brian Lehrer: We'll start there with our lead, Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim, joining us for the third day in a row, by the way. Liz, this puts you on the Mount Rushmore of Brian Lehrer Show guests. I'm not sure we've ever had the same reporter or any guest on three days in a row, but if we have, it's been extremely rare. Here you are on the leaders' board. Thanks for all the time this week. At least I can say happy Friday.

Elizabeth Kim: Happy Friday, Brian. It's such an honor. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: To my eye, those Hochul words at least imply that she thinks the "appropriate path forward," as she put it, is to resign and that "I expect the mayor to take the next few days to review the situation" means I'm giving you a grace period to jump on your own. Liz, maybe I'm reading too much into that. I'm curious how others you report on are taking it.

Elizabeth Kim: No, I thought of that too, Brian. What I thought of was it reminded me a lot of Nancy Pelosi's statement on Morning Joe, if we remember when she went on and said, it's the president's decision, and I just hope that he makes the decision soon. This is about him stepping down from his campaign for the presidency when we had already heard him say that he was planning to run for reelection, but then you had her insert some doubt around it. That's what that statement reminded me about.

Then again, we talked about this yesterday, Brian. She is in a very difficult spot because she and the mayor have been so aligned politically. They have been such steady allies on issues around public safety, around the business community, around mayoral control. The other issue is they're both unpopular. How does this work for her to have to divorce herself from a mayor who has been indicted? It's going to be very hard for them to stand together on issues.

At the same time, there is this conversation of will she alienate the Black base that Adams carries, that she believes helps her for her own political capital. That leads to another question. How durable is the support of Adams's Black supporters in a moment like this?

Brian Lehrer: Well, let's ask our listeners if you consider yourself a Black supporter of Eric Adams, if we can put it that way, if you're part of his base, somebody in southeast Queens, Bed-Stuy, Brownsville, east New York, parts of Manhattan, Harlem. Harlem's more demographically mixed these days, but parts of Harlem, if you consider yourself part of what's been called the moderate Black Democrat base of Eric Adams' support, where are you today? Give us a call, 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. There's no wrong answer. Just trying to see where people are. 212-433-9692 with our lead Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim.

On that, Liz, at his news conference yesterday, he did gather a group of supporters. I didn't see them myself, but I saw this reported as largely members of the Black clergy from Brooklyn. As he spoke yesterday, we could hear people occasionally saying "Amen," indicating it was a Christian clergy or congregation member group there. Do you have a sense, politically, of who is supporting him at this point? I guess you just raised the question as we don't really know, but either asserting his innocence along with him or just that he shouldn't resign right away?

Elizabeth Kim: Prior to the indictment, I talked to you that I went to the African American Day parade. It's a very small sample, and it's in Harlem. Harlem is nothing really considered the core of his base, which is in those neighborhoods you named in Brooklyn, but it's still a way to take the temperature of there are longtime Harlemites who go to a parade like that, who are very civically engaged and who will vote.

The reaction was divided because there is skepticism in the community toward law enforcement and that they have racially targeted Black politicians. The feeling that the media has unfairly targeted Black politicians, there is that sentiment that runs through the community. They're willing to give a Black mayor, only the second Black mayor of the city, a bit of grace. I was asking people about this before the indictment. This might change things. It might not. That's the question.

Brian Lehrer: That is the question. Here's something else from another frequent guest on the show, Elie Mystal, legal affairs correspondent for the Nation Magazine, and author of the book Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution. We're going to invite Elie on for Monday's show. We'll see if he can do it. Ellie, maybe you're listening this morning. There's your invitation. Please text my producer [chuckles]. She's probably reached out to him already, actually.

Ellie tweeted yesterday, "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. You know what he's suggesting there. Are you hearing much of that, that Adams is getting harsher treatment or more scrutiny because he's Black? The US attorney, Damian Williams, is Black too, for the record.

Elizabeth Kim: Well, you better believe that that is a conversation that the mayor wants Black New Yorkers to think about. It's not like they haven't thought about it. Like I said, in my interviews in Harlem, that was definitely something that was on their minds. What I think is interesting about yesterday's indictment is I'm very interested in how- not how it plays in the court of law. That's something separate, and I'm sure there are a lot of legal experts who can break that down, but how does it play in the court of public opinion?

Not to minimize the alleged corruption here, but it was, the total sum of the bribes was around $100,000. Not to minimize that amount, but I do wonder how the scale of the corruption plays in the minds of your everyday New Yorkers. This is $100,000. It's not millions of dollars. There were no gold bars found. I am interested in how does this land with someone? One person pointed out to me that perhaps that doesn't matter. Perhaps all the public sees is Mayor Adams is indicted. The first sitting mayor to be indicted.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a text from a listener who identifies herself as a Black woman in Harlem who grew up in Brooklyn. She writes, "He is innocent until proven guilty. Remember the mayor of Washington, DC, Marion Barry? Didn't he stay in office?" Another listener writes, "I was an ardent supporter of Adams, but his continuing alignment with corruption since he got into office has eroded all confidence." Here's another caller, Kanani in Harlem. You're on WNYC. Hi, Kanani.

Kanani: Hi. Good morning, Brian. I'll try to make my points quick. I have been predicting this since he ran for mayor. I think that he is so ambitious. The incongruency of an "unconventional candidate" such as himself, and again, I've seen him in person several times at various political events. Most of these people that I'm with in fellowships and other political circles do not in any way, shape or form respect him, by the way, for years.

He will always come up and say I'm from the projects. I'm dyslexic, and now I'm elected. He says this each and every time. It's not fair to children in New York City that are also under dire circumstances, that are ambitious people like me, who used to be a teacher, presiding over these children and telling them, dream big, and then look what he is doing. He has been, how can I say, exploiting this narrative of started from the bottom, now, I'm here, to the point where he is addicted to corruption.

Clearly, this is like eight years. He's an addict. He needs detox. He is addicted to corruption. Because racism is so systemic and America has yet to solve the issue of racism, this is why Black people sometimes have cognitive dissonance and go and defy logic and defy common sense to sit there and defend him. We are all responsible for the reason why Eric Adams is parading around the way that he is in the most embarrassing way. Shameful.

Brian Lehrer: I think, just remembering some of your previous calls to the show, that you're not politically so aligned with Eric Adams either, don't agree with him on a bunch of things. How did you react to that, Elie Mystal tweet, of you heard it?

Kanani: Yes, I respect him as well. I've been. He's often on MSNBC.

Brian Lehrer: I'm here.

Kanani: Yes, of course. Of course. Again, I think that that throughline, it does a disservice for who Eric Adams is and what Eric Adams has done. Not only has he done this level of corruption, he's extremely arrogant, cocky, brazen, and sloppy. All of this, I predicted in 2020. People could smell his level of zealous ambition and said, you know what, let him be the pawn in our game of chess, and he said yes.

Brian Lehrer: Kanani, I'm going to leave it there. Always appreciate the call. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think we're going to have a different take from Jose and Woodside. Jose, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Jose: Yes, I agree with everything the previous caller said, but furthermore, I say as a minority person growing up in Bedford Stuyvesant, I went to Boys High back when, and Red Hook, I'm sure, to me, but he has gone through much more difficult-- This is not a difficult moment for him at all. This should not be a challenge for him if he's a Black man growing up in Brooklyn, sometimes at his age.

As far as AOC coming out against him, I have always voted and been on her corner, but now I am questioning her because a minority person, she should not be so adamantly against him dropping out. The governor better be very careful about this because she should also say, like the previous call said, step back, let him look at his record and go from there.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Jose. Appreciate it. With our lead, Eric Adams reporter Elizabeth Kim, here's another political thing. I'm going to turn the corner a little here. This is Adams from his Wednesday night video suggesting he's been targeted by the Biden administration because he asked for more help for settling the asylum seekers.

Mayor Eric Adams: I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, that I would be a target, and a target I became.

Brian Lehrer: That also came up at the mayor's live news conference yesterday, and it came up from a heckler. You'll hear the mayor first, the heckler second, and an Adams supporter talking back to the heckler, all in this 20-second clip.

Mayor Eric Adams: When you say, who's the point person that's going to deal with business communities? Who's going to deal with the business of running the city, the point person is Eric Adams.

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Heckler: You sound like Donald Trump. You sound like Donald Trump. How is this different from what Donald Trump [unintelligible 00:14:22]?

Adams supporter: How dare you compare him to Donald Trump.

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Brian Lehrer: All right, so I know that was a chaotic clip. The heckler was saying, how is this different from Donald Trump? You sound like Donald Trump. Then one of the supporters there with Adams said, how dare you compare him to Donald Trump?

Liz, the issue there, and you don't have to be a heckler to think this, is isn't Adams staging a very Trumpy public defense? I don't know that this stands up in court. We'll ask our legal analyst, who's going to be the next guest after you, but as far as the public-facing defense Biden's out to get me, because I'm a political opponent, is very Trumpy.

Elizabeth Kim: It is very Trumpy. It was no surprise that Donald Trump seized on those remarks. He said, you see this is what happens. This is what the Biden/Harris administration does. We saw this play out before. This is a little bit of deja vu when Donald Trump seized on the mayor's criticism of Biden's handling of the migrant crisis.

We're once again in this moment where we have a Democratic mayor of the largest city in the country giving, handing talking points to the Republican candidate for president. It's a very close election and Democrats are very nervous. This actually makes things more difficult, I think, for the mayor because how does he have Democratic allies stand by him while he imperils Kamala Harris's campaign for the presidency? That has put someone like a very, very steady ally, like Reverend Al Sharpton in a difficult position. Notice we didn't see him at the Gracie Mansion press conference.

Brian Lehrer: Well, relevant to this, we have our occasional caller, Danny in Massapequa, retired NYPD lieutenant, Trump supporter. The last time he called, he said he was going to go to the Trump rally at Nassau Coliseum last week and has a take on these charges in that context. Right, Danny? Hi, you're on WNYC.

Danny: Good morning. My brother went much higher up in a police department than I do. He's blaming this on Eric's friends. The people around him are not good people. My brother has known them for 20 years. I think Eric got sucked into this. It's funny, as I picked up the newspaper yesterday morning, the person defending the mayor was none other than Jonathan Turley, who has been a defender of Trump with the charges were all rigged. It was never done before, unprecedented. Now he's saying the same thing about this, that there's not a lot in this indictment that is anything earth-shattering that politicians getting their plane tickets bumped up, and he may not even be aware of these things.

It's funny. When Trump is screaming as politically motivated and the state AG has deemed she wants to get Trump, everybody takes it off as conspiracy, but now Donald Trump's actual statement yesterday was that he never met the mayor, but as soon as the mayor criticized the Biden administration, he said, "That's it. He'll be done." Now all of a sudden, to me, it appears that it is a lot of political motivation.

Brian Lehrer: You don't think, do you? People can think whatever they want, but that Damian Williams, the US attorney, is going after Adams on these charges in the context of what you said and attributed to your brother, who knows his circles, as you say, surrounding himself with a lot of bad people, that you don't think Damian Williams is doing this as political payback to Eric Adams for raising the migrant issue, do you really?

Danny: Damien Williams has a boss, and Donald Trump's CEO went to jail to Rikers for six months because he had a Trump association car that he didn't claim as income. I believe that this Justice Department is so political and so vindictive that once you start an investigation and you start to uncover minor things, however minor they are, as we saw with the Hunter Biden thing, you just can't ignore it. Yes, it would not shock me if they were going to try to fire a shot across Eric's bow to shut his mouth. Once you start this investigation, you're going to do what your boss tells you to do. If one charges--

Brian Lehrer: Danny, thank you very much. Appreciate your call. Well, Liz, there it is from a Trump supporter, what you were citing a moment ago. Though, Danny also attributing it somewhat to conspiracy theorists or that conspiracy theorists will latch onto it. Interesting that he cites Jonathan Turley, law professor who has defended Trump on a lot of the charges against him in the media and saying small potatoes here, too, with respect to Eric Adams. Agree or disagree? Danny's take represents something that's out there.

Elizabeth Kim: I did want to make another important legal point that several former prosecutors made to me yesterday, which was that at the end of his press conference, Damian Williams said this investigation is still ongoing, and he invited members of the public who might know something to come forward.

On one hand, it's boilerplate. It's something that the US attorney will often say during these indictment press conferences. On the other hand, we do know that there are at least three other investigations that are still ongoing that surround Adams's inner circle. It's very possible that there are more charges both tied to this ongoing investigation and also those three others. There could be more damaging information that comes from prosecutors in the coming weeks or months.

Brian Lehrer: Let me get one more caller in here, and then we're going to bring on Richard Briffault, law professor from Columbia, on the legal aspects of this, which definitely overlap with some of the political aspects we've been talking about with you. Mark in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mark.

Mark: Hi. How are you doing? One of the things that I saw that I did a little bit of investigation on was this thing where supposedly the FDNY was pressured to issue this occupancy clearance for the embassy. I looked up the Vienna convention in 1961, and article 22 says that this embassy to the UN or consulate, is invaluable, meaning that they don't have to comply with local laws.

Given the position that Turkey holds with respect to NATO, and given the frictions that have been going on between the United States and Turkey, the fact that Erdoğan was coming and wanted to see this building that they had just constructed, I don't get why one particular firefighter who had some- he was taking them to task for the way that the fire systems were programmed. It looks to me like this doesn't add up. I don't think that Adams would have had the ability as borough president at that time to pressure the FDNY when the Turkish government didn't need the FDNY's approval anyway. They do it as a formality.

Brian Lehrer: That's an interesting take. There's a certain amount of diplomatic or sovereign immunity that an embassy or a consulate in this country has, considered the property of the other country. I'm not sure it goes as far as you're suggesting, Mark, but it's an interesting thought.

Liz, related to that, let's finish on this with you because on your Gothamist article, you referred to fast tracking building projects as the favor that the mayor did for the Turkish government. For example, as you write, "Once Adams became the presumptive mayor in 2021, yes, he was still the borough president," but I think, contrary to what the caller just said, he would have some influence with the fire department.

Once he became the presumptive mayor in 2021, you write, "Turkish officials started calling in favors, like expediting the opening of a consulate building ahead of a visit by Turkish President Erdoğan according to the indictment." There is a difference between how some people have put it, which is letting them get away without a fire inspection. That would really be a safety hazard, and expediting the inspections. What was it, as far as you know?

Elizabeth Kim: It was that fire officials, according to reporting, didn't feel the building was ready yet, but according to the indictment, actually, I should say according to the indictment, that's what the indictment said was that fire officials didn't feel that it was ready yet, but that Adams pressured someone in the FDNY to get it ready and just clear it and allow it to be open in time for President Erdoğan's visit.

Brian Lehrer: All right. There we leave it for today, the third day in a row with our lead Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim. Liz, you will not be coming on this show tomorrow. The record is going to be broken because we're both off, or I'm off. You may have to be working, reporting this story. I don't know, but no Brian Lehrer Show on Saturday.

Elizabeth Kim: I'd come on on Saturday for you, Brian [laughs].

Brian Lehrer: [chuckles] Maybe we'll do a special. Liz, thanks a lot.

Elizabeth Kim: Thanks, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. When we come back, we will stay on the topic and bring on legal analyst Richard Briffault from the Columbia Law School, more of your calls and texts, too. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, day two, legal analysis of the indictment of Mayor Adams. For this, we welcome Columbia Law School's Richard Briffault. His bio page says he is one of the nation's leading experts on government ethics and the law of the political process. He served on Governor Andrew Cuomo's Moreland Commission on Public Integrity, and he served as chair of New York City's conflicts of interest board, among many other things in his career in this field. Professor Briffault, thanks a lot for coming on. Welcome to WNYC. Welcome back to WNYC.

Richard Briffault: Great. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Brian Lehrer: We'll start with one short clip, 20-second clip of US Attorney Damian Williams yesterday announcing the indictment.

US Attorney Damian Williams: In 2017, Adams accepted free business class tickets for himself and his travel companions to France, Turkey, and China. He was put up in the Bentley suite in the St. Regis Hotel in Istanbul. All of that was worth more than $41,000 and none of it was publicly disclosed.

Brian Lehrer: Professor Briffault, as our Liz Kim was talking about in the previous segment, and as she reported, prosecutors put the value of the free perks, which they say Adams did not disclose as required by law, at more than $100,000. What Liz brought up in the last segment is that in the scheme of things, in corruption charges in New York history, in American history, in New Jersey history with Senator Menendez and the gold bars and everything, it's actually not a lot of money. What's your take being a government ethics expert for all these years?

Richard Briffault: Well, I would refocus it a little bit on the other charges. It's true that the amount of money that went to him personally, it actually very little. I don't know if any money went to him. These are all in-kind benefits, travel, flights, accommodations, but I would focus more on the way he manipulated the matching funds program by submitting straw donors, which allowed him to get, I think, several million dollars' worth of matching funds that he was not entitled to. At least that's the allegation.

That to me is a much more serious charge of the abuse of the matching funds program, which is actually taxpayer dollars that were diverted to him that he wasn't entitled to and, of course, is a very straightforward violation of the federal law banning foreign campaign contributions in American elections. I think the free hotel rooms are maybe the thing that gets the most headlines, but I think it's actually the other thing, the actual effect, I'll call it a theft of taxpayer dollars. Certainly, it's an abuse of a taxpayer program, the matching funds program, and the flat out violation of the law against soliciting and accepting foreign contributions. If the facts prove out, those strike me as very serious charges.

Brian Lehrer: That's really interesting. Do you think that the media, maybe including us, is missing the center for the fringes here, focusing on the bribery, which are a little more salacious? Like we heard in the clip, he's taking all these luxury vacations on Turkish business people's dimes, for the most part.

Richard Briffault: It's easier to do what the indictment did, which is put up the pictures of a luxury hotel. It's not quite as bad as Menendez's gold bars. The other charges, which seem a little more bloodless are actually very substantial.

Brian Lehrer: A lot of people probably don't understand the public matching system in New York City, which I think was a reaction to Mayor Michael Bloomberg being seen as able to buy his way to the mayoralty because he spent like $90 million of his own money, I think, on one of his campaigns. It so overwhelmed his Democratic opponent that they then change the rules so that there's a lot of public matching money that goes in to match smaller donations to mayoral candidates and other candidates for city offices so that there's a way of compete with an individual rich guy. Right?

Richard Briffault: You basically explained it, yes. The public matching program goes back to well before Mayor Bloomberg, but you're right, the City Council repeatedly revised it to increase the match. Basically, if I give a candidate $100, the candidate will get $800. The additional money will come from taxpayer dollars. The idea is that small donations, I forget how high up small goes- I think it goes to 150, but don't hold me on that- will be hit with this big multiple of eight times. As a way of leveraging small donations to compete against big donors.

What the allegation is is that, in effect of several large donors were willing to make large donations, he said, no, no, no, break them up into small ones because the small ones will get all these matching funds. People basically got their employees to make the donations and they reimburse the employees.

This has occurred in the matching fund system before. It is a problem. Again, the allegations are that he used it quite a lot, and I think it combines with the foreign money, but I think some of the donors were domestic. At least that's the allegation. Some of them may have come from businesses, which also are not matchable, but were then routed through with the employees of the businesses. Business money, corporate money is not matchable, but the money only by employees is. The indictment goes into some detail about how this scheme is supposed to have worked. If they can prove that these are very serious charges.

Brian Lehrer: Is that the fraud in the indictment? The top line that goes by very quickly when we're reporting the story is that he was indicted on counts of bribery, soliciting illegal foreign campaign contributions, and fraud. Is what you were just describing the fraud part?

Richard Briffault: That's the fraud. It's for defrauding New York City.

Brian Lehrer: Got it right.

Richard Briffault: It's wire fraud. The federal link is that they were using the wires, and also that New York City receives federal money. This is what's called federal program bribery, and it applies to governments that receive federal funds. That makes this a federal crime. He no doubt violated New York City law, the matching funds law, just like he-- No doubt he violated. No doubt.

He could be charged with violating the New York City public funding law, and he could be charged with violating the conflicts of interest law for the non-disclosed free trips, but those aren't federal crimes. The federal crime is that he is, in effect, defrauding New York City. New York City is a government that receives federal funds.

Brian Lehrer: Interestingly, because that alleged fraud is around campaign donations that he did disclose. Now, they were allegedly illegally chopped up into many small donations because only the small donations get you the public matching funds, but then there's the part that he's accused of not disclosing. Here's 11 seconds of US Attorney Damian Williams on that.

US Attorney Damian Williams: Year after year after year, he kept the public in the dark. He told the public he received no gifts, even though he was secretly being showered with them.

Brian Lehrer: Can you explain the law there, Professor Briffault? What is he supposed to do with respect to these trips that were in the form of luxury travel?

Richard Briffault: They were supposed to be disclosed. That's the simplest thing. The conflicts of interest law required, as disclosure requirements. There are different thresholds which you have to disclose. There are lower thresholds for disclosure of gifts from somebody who does business with the city, and a higher threshold from someone if you get a substantial gift above a certain dollar value.

Maybe when he was getting a lot of these gifts early on, they were coming from these Turkish entities that were not doing business with the city, but again, according to the government's claim, they were above the threshold that they still should have been disclosed anyway. I think they said in the first year he was getting these gifts, he did disclose them, I think they said in 2015, but after that, he just stopped.

That is not a federal crime. That would violate local law, but their claim is it then ties into the other allegations that ultimately he did call it a corrupt favor for the Turkish interest in getting and lobbying and pushing for the approval of that building. Then separately, that he was also getting campaign donations and he was [crosstalk]-- Sorry, go ahead.

Brian Lehrer: No, finish the thought. You can finish the thought.

Richard Briffault: There's just a number of different things going on here. Some of them are about what you call the private benefit to him, which got the most publicity, which is the travel, all the free flights, and the fancy hotel rooms. Then there is the part that would be the political benefit, the campaign benefit, which is the foreign contributions and the straw contributions, which you say he reported them, but they reported falsely.

He reported that I got 100- I'm making this up- I got $100 from Joe Smith. Actually, it was $20,000 from Jane Doe that was run through 20 other people. He may have said, I got $100 from Joe Smith, but that's not true. Technically, it may have come from Joe Smith, but the real money came from somebody else. [crosstalk] quite the allegation.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, we have a question on that from a listener. Listeners, we'll take a few phone calls for Professor Briffault on specifically the legal aspect of the indictment of Eric Adams. Bradford in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Let me pull him down here. There we go. Bradford, hi there.

Bradford: Hi. I love this show. I've called in once in a while, once in a blue moon. My concern with this is that I know elected officials that have fundraisers all the time. We all know there's pay to play. We all know that the people that go to the fundraisers get access. It's true with every single elected official probably in the country, but certainly in New York. That's not illegal, necessarily.

Typically, an elected official shows up at the fundraiser, speaks, leaves. They're not the person taking the checks. There's usually a campaign staff that takes the checks, interacts with the donors. In this case, I don't know, maybe the evidence is there, but I would need to see evidence that the campaign staff knew that these people were straw donors and not just saying I'm Joe Schmo who's giving you this money, and not somebody actively dividing up a bigger donation from someone else.

Brian Lehrer: Great. Let me leave it there for time because we want to get some other people on, but Bradford, thanks for that call. It's a great question. The US attorney is going to have to prove that Adams personally knew, since Adams is the one being charged, that these straw donors were in fact small donors representing, illegally, a bigger donor who they were just fronts for.

Richard Briffault: That's right. There are allegations in the indictment to that effect that he was involved in this, that he was involved in getting the donors to break up their donations and run them through others, or that he was working with his staff, but your caller and you are absolutely right. They're going to have to prove that.

Brian Lehrer: let's take another call. Lisa on the Lower East Side, you're on WNYC with Columbia law professor Richard Briffault. Hi.

Lisa: Hi. I'm a long-time first-time. I think the presenter may have answered the question after I called in. I have served as a treasurer for New York City election candidates and I'm somewhat familiar with campaign finance board procedures. I couldn't quite grasp how the federal indictment could refer to the matching fund issue since that is a city policy overseen by New York City, not the feds.

Brian Lehrer: You want to go over that again briefly, Professor Briffault?

Richard Briffault: Yes again, your caller is right. The fact that somebody violates the New York City campaign finance law is not a federal crime. There would be state enforcement for that. The government's claim is that it gets picked up by federal law, by this thing called the federal program bribery law. The idea is that when the federal government gives money to states and local governments, it has an interest in making sure that that money is not misused or it's not diverted to the not used corruptly.

The claim here is that, by the way in which he manipulated the matching funds program, he got New York City taxpayer dollars to which he was not entitled, and he did that intentionally. The two go together. The violation of the New York City system triggers the federal violation. That's the claim.

Brian Lehrer: One of the relative supporters of Eric Adams at this point in power centers in New York, as reported by our reporter, Elizabeth Kim, is Kathy Wild. You may know her. The head of the Partnership for New York City, a group that represents business interests, big business primarily. She was not one in the last day to jump on the bandwagon calling for the mayor to resign. She said she wanted to give the mayor time to present a "substantive response" to the charges. Substantive response.

In fairness, I don't think we've heard a substantive response. First, we've heard the mayor say that the Biden administration is out to get him. I want to ask you about US Attorney Damian Williams and Merrick Garland in that respect in a minute. In terms of a substantive response, do you have a sense yet of what their legal defense is? I don't think they go into court saying, oh, they're out to get me. They're going to have to go into court saying he didn't really do these things.

Richard Briffault: I understand, and I think this relates to some of your callers. I was listening in a little bit earlier that he might have a defense on the bribery one. He might be able to try a defense, to mount the defense. Again, I'm not commenting whether it worked or not, that he got all these perks from the Turks, but when he went into expedite that building [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: Perks fromthe Turks. That should be the name of the scandal, Perks from the Turks.

Richard Briffault: All right. I can see the New York Post headline now.

Brian Lehrer: That's right, Saturday Night Live, you can have it. You don't even have to attribute it. Perks from the Turks. Anyway, go ahead.

Richard Briffault: I could see that that the claim that he got these things and he did this thing to open up the building earlier and they're not related and the government's going to have to prove they are related, and he may be able to argue that. I have a tougher time with the other ones. It would have to be that he somehow was so disconnected from his campaign fundraising that he was so completely unaware of how they were raising money from foreigners and straw donors that he just didn't know anything about it. There are five counts. I could sketch out a theory of how to- on the bribery count. Again, the facts would have to be there. I have a hard time figuring out the substantive defense of the other ones.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting.

Richard Briffault: I'm sure we'll hear it, but I haven't heard it yet.

Brian Lehrer: Here's the public-facing defense that the mayor's been going with, really for weeks, but including after the indictment was announced, this is an eight second clip we played earlier. We're going to play it again now.

Mayor Eric Adams: I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, that I would be a target, and a target I became.

Brian Lehrer: Professor Briffault, we had a caller earlier, Trump supporter, who is citing the fact that there are a lot of Trump supporters out there who think that, aha, here's another example of the Biden Justice Department going after its political enemy in this case, Eric Adams, because he kept shaking the trees to get more federal funding to help settle the migrants.

I think just about every New Yorker of any political stripe thinks he was right on that issue. If immigration is a federal responsibility and New York all of a sudden gets 100,000, 200,000 asylum seekers, in a short amount of time, the federal government should be giving us a lot more money to resettle those folks. You don't have to be anti-immigrant to be critical of the federal government, the Biden administration, on that score. Adams was, but this goes so much further, saying, oh, this, I'm being indicted on a criminal charge because I was critical of them on funding. Really?

Richard Briffault: Yes. In the end, the indictment will stand or fall on the government's ability to actually prove in court that these facts actually happened, that their allegations are actually facts, and then eventually a jury will have to decide that if it goes all the way to that. You can be nervous about why charges are brought, but in the end, they won't work unless they can be sustained in court and a jury's going to believe them.

Brian Lehrer: In your career as a law professor and in government chairing New York City's conflict of interest board and on Governor Andrew Cuomo's Moreland Commission on Public Integrity, all these things that you've done and with your expertise, and I don't know if US Attorney Damian Williams at all, or Merrick Arlen, the attorney general, for that matter, but do you have any reason to believe that any evidence suggests that this might be political payback?

Richard Briffault: I said I have no reason to believe that. I have no insight information about any of this. These are people with, I think have excellent reputations for their integrity. I see no evidence that there's anything, any political motivation behind it. That's not going to convince anybody. I know that who people are persuaded there are, but I've seen nothing that suggests that there's a political motivation.

The charges are not political in the sense they don't relate to things that people could argue about. I know in the Trump case, people might argue about what exactly was he doing on January 6, but here there's no justification, if it occurred, for knowingly taking foreign money. That's a pretty straightforward thing.

Brian Lehrer: Just to go back to the politics for one second, even though you're here for the legal analysis part. If some people are arguing that this helps Trump in a way in the presidential race because here is a Democratic mayor of New York City saying the same thing that Trump has been saying, that the Biden Justice Department is corruptly going after them for political purposes, you could spin it the other way, too, which is the Biden Justice Department is not reluctant to prosecute Democrats when they think that they've done something wrong.

See Menendez. See now Eric Adams, Democrats, not just Republicans, who the Biden Justice Department is going after. It could be an argument that they're just looking for crime. They're not looking for politics.

Richard Briffault: That's a fair point. I don't disagree.

Brian Lehrer: We will leave it there with Columbia law professor Richard Briffault. Thanks a lot for joining us.

Richard Briffault: Okay, my pleasure.

 

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