By Chris Menahan – Information Liberation
Glass ceiling: shattered.
From The New York Times, “Eric Adams Is Indicted in New York”:
Mayor Eric L. Adams has been indicted on federal criminal charges, according to people with knowledge of the matter, and will be the first mayor in modern New York City history to be charged while in office.
The indictment is sealed, and it was unclear what charge or charges Mr. Adams, a Democrat, will face or when he will surrender to the authorities. Federal prosecutors are expected to announce the details of the indictment on Thursday.
“I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target — and a target I became,” Mr. Adams, 64, said in a statement Wednesday night. “If I am charged, I am innocent and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit.”
The unprecedented indictment comes a little less than a year after federal agents searched the home of Mr. Adams’s chief fund-raiser and seized the mayor’s electronic devices as he left a public event in Manhattan.
The mayor and his aides have said he was cooperating with the authorities, and Mr. Adams has continued to insist that he has done nothing wrong.
Mr. Adams, a retired police captain, was elected New York’s 110th mayor in 2021 after a campaign built on a pledge to reduce crime, bring professionalism to City Hall and tap his personal brand of “swagger.”
But he staffed top positions with friends and loyalists, and his inner circle has been engulfed by federal investigations that have targeted the highest ranks of city government. Earlier this month, federal agents seized phones from numerous top city officials, including a top aide to Mr. Adams, the schools chancellor and the police commissioner. The commissioner, Edward A. Caban, and the schools chancellor, David C. Banks, later resigned.
Mr. Adams, the second Black person to lead the nation’s largest city, was already facing a competitive primary in his run for re-election next year, and the indictment was likely to prompt more challengers to enter the race.
Rather than indict Adams for shutting down pro-Palestine protests at the behest of a private groupchat full of Israel First billionaires, the Times is claiming the indictment stems from his dealings with Turkey.
The charges against Mayor Eric Adams stem from a broad public corruption investigation that began in 2021 and examined whether the mayor and his campaign conspired with the Turkish government that year to receive illegal foreign donations.
Additionally, the federal inquiry examined whether Mr. Adams pressured New York Fire Department officials to sign off on a new high-rise building for the Turkish consulate despite safety concerns. Agents also investigated valuable flight upgrades they believe the mayor received from Turkish Airlines.
Adams said on Wednesday night that if he’s charged by the feds “the charges will be completely false and founded on lies.”
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez threw Adams under the bus as soon as the Times’ story dropped:
Adams responded by playing the race card.
“For anyone who self-righteously claims people charged with serious crimes should not be in jail to now say that the second Black mayor of New York should resign because of rumors and innuendo — without even a single charge being filed — is the height of hypocrisy,” Adams said. “I am leading this city to protect it from exactly that kind of phony politics.”