Who Is More Corrupt, Eric Adams Or The Biden-Harris DOJ/FBI?
/The answer to the question is that it’s not a close call. The Biden-Harris DOJ/FBI is far more corrupt.
For the latest evidence, consider the new federal criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Yesterday, a federal grand jury, acting at the behest of the Biden-Harris Department of Justice and FBI, handed down an indictment of Adams. The indictment was then released today. The full text can be found here.
Plenty in the Democrat Party media took the occasion to credit the work of the feds and jump all over Adams. As an example, the headline at Bloomberg News is “NYC Mayor Was Corrupt For Years, US Claims in Scathing Case.” Adams, on the other hand, responded by accusing the Biden-Harris DOJ/FBI of engaging in corrupt pay-back for his speaking out about the Biden-Harris immigration crisis and its impact on the City. Adams released a video with his response, available at the New York Post website. Excerpt:
Despite our pleas, when the federal government did nothing as its broken immigration policies overloaded our shelter system with no relief, I put the people of New York before party and politics. . . . I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target — and a target I became.
Who has the better side of the case? I’m old enough to remember when if the feds handed up an indictment of a politician, you could be very sure that they had a real case. Those days are long gone. Today under Biden and Harris, the DOJ and FBI are very much in the business of corruptly using their power and resources to harass their political opponents, and jail them if possible.
Could that be what’s going on here? Let’s look at the indictment. I have read the whole thing carefully, and it is shockingly thin. There has been a full-bore federal investigation going on for many months, probably more than a year. Many millions of federal taxpayer dollars have been expended. Is this all they have come up with?
A federal bribery case basically must allege a quid pro quo: someone has paid (or given a “thing of value”) to a politician, in return for some kind of misuse of government resources (an “official act”). Here’s what they allege.
The “payment”
Almost all of the indictment deals with Adams’s relations with some Turkish businessmen or officials of the Turkish government. One of the officials was an executive at Turkish Airlines. During the period 2016 to 2021 (all before Adams became Mayor) the allegation is that the Turkish officials arranged for Adams to get complimentary upgrades for himself and travel companions on Turkish airlines, from coach to business class, on six occasions. On two of these occasions, it is also alleged that Adams was provided with a comped luxury hotel suite. A table on page 41 of the indictment lays out the alleged value of these travel perks. The total is $133,000 — a figure that is laughable when compared to the amount of foreign payola accepted by Joe Biden and his family with zero DOJ interest. And based on my own experience with coach and business class fares, the $133,000 figure appears to be substantially inflated.
There are also allegations that various Turkish nationals arranged to make contributions to Adams’s campaigns, mainly his 2021 campaign for Mayor. Since foreign nationals are prohibited from making contributions to U.S. political campaigns, the allegation is that Adams and the real donors (Turkish businessmen or state actors) arranged to make the contributions through “straw” donors, that is, U.S. citizens who could legally make donations, and who would then be reimbursed. Unlike with the airline upgrades, there is no handy table in the indictment to tell us the amounts at issue; but from the various examples cited, it would appear that the amounts at issue are well less than $100,000 total.
The Quid Pro Quo
And what is Adams alleged to have done in return for these gifts? Again, the relevant allegations are spread across the indictment, but I find three things:
Adams received a request to stop associating with a Turkish-American group that was critical of the Turkish government, and he complied with that request.
The second alleged quid pro quo arose in September 2021, a time when Adams was Borough President of Brooklyn, but had just won the Democratic primary for the nomination for Mayor, and was therefore heavily favored to become the next Mayor, although the election had not yet occurred. At this time the President of Turkey was planning a visit to New York in connection with the UN General Assembly meeting, and intended to use the occasion to inaugurate a new Turkish consulate in New York. The consulate was in a brand new building that was awaiting its Certificate of Occupancy, which however had been held up pending inspection by the New York Fire Department for fire safety issues. In this context, Adams allegedly heavily lobbied the Fire Department to expedite the inspection and clear a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy so that the event could take place during the visit. The Fire Department then accelerated the inspection at Adams’s request and issued the TCO so that the event could proceed.
Adams allegedly acceded to a request to add a Turkish national with connections to the government to his transition team as he got ready to take the office of Mayor on January 1, 2022.
The first and third of those acts would not in my view rise to the level of an “official act” sufficient to support a bribery charge under Supreme Court precedent. The second at least involves actions taken in an official capacity, but could also be the kind of thing that a Borough President (largely a ceremonial office) would do for any foreign government. Unlike, for example, threatening to withhold foreign aid in order to get a prosecutor fired.
The alleged campaign finance violations at least involve a real crime, if they can be proven. The key is whether Adams knew that the donors listed on his records were not the real donors because they were being reimbursed. Even if they were, the amounts are not large, and look like the kind of thing that would normally be dealt with by FEC fines rather than a full-bore criminal prosecution.
Meanwhile also in today’s New York Post is an article about testimony yesterday of a guy named Marcus Allen before the House Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government. Allen was an FBI staff operations specialist when, on September 29, 2021, he forwarded an email to supervisors and colleagues at the FBI Charlotte field office which included hyperlinks to sources raising questions about the number of FBI sources embedded with the protestors at the Capitol on January 6. From the Post:
Allen sent the links to highlight what he believed was not “forthright” testimony by FBI Director Christopher Wray about confidential human sources not being at the Capitol during the “Stop the Steal” rally thrown by former President Donald Trump. His belief was buttressed by reporting that originated in the New York Times and included links to other well-known political news sites like the polling aggregator RealClearPolitics.
The FBI responded to Allen raising questions with a 2+ year campaign against him:
Marcus Allen, whose attorneys reached a settlement with the bureau earlier this year, told the Judiciary Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government that higher-ups “accused me of promoting conspiratorial views and unreliable information” for questioning how many confidential informants were present at the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. “The FBI questioned my allegiance to the United States, suspended my security clearance, suspended my pay and refused to allow me to obtain outside employment or even accept charity,” Allen testified about the 27 months he was held in “indefinite limbo.”
The Post notes that the Wray testimony that was questioned by Allen was later contradicted by 2023 testimony from ex FBI Washington Field Office Assistant Director in Charge, who said that the Bureau had so many confidential sources embedded on January 6 that it had “lost count” of how many.
The DOJ Inspector General issued a report that backed Allen, which led to his receiving back pay and re-instatement of his security clearance.
And of course the FBI/DOJ cases against Donald Trump proceed even as Trump could well be re-elected President next month.
At this point, it is a safe bet that anything the DOJ/FBI is doing in the political sphere is corrupt. Adams may well also be a little corrupt, but nothing remotely at their level.