So a grand jury indicted the mayor of the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world on federal bribery and wire fraud charges. But Democratic New York Mayor Eric Adams has some choice words for those casting stones.
“I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target, and a target I became,” Adams said in a statement, seeming to imply that the Department of Justice was targeting him for resisting the flow of migrants the federal government has sent to his city.
“I will request an immediate trial so that New Yorkers can hear the truth. New Yorkers know my story. They know where I come from. I have been fighting injustice my entire life,” he continued.
“That fight has continued as your mayor. 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.”
Adams staunchly maintains his innocence and that the charges against him are based on “lies.” Sound familiar?
Indicting the mayor of New York is a big deal. You’d expect prosecutors would take that step only when they have irrefutable evidence. But the bribery charges against Eric Adams fail to match the hype, write James Burnham and Yaakov Rothhttps://t.co/2JSj4N5jOz
— Wall Street Journal Opinion (@WSJopinion) September 30, 2024
The Democratic mayor of America’s bluest city now sounds all but indistinguishable from Donald Trump. And like Trump, he may have a bit of a point. (RELATED: Eric Adams Claims Biden-Harris Admin Targeted Him After He Spoke Out About ‘Broken Immigration Policies’)
Adams faces a total of five counts, with charges of bribery, wire fraud and soliciting contributions from a foreign government. Even after years of combing through his electronic devices and interviews with his staffers, however, the charges brought against him are not exactly what you’d call air tight. For such a historic indictment of sitting mayor, you wouldn’t expect federal prosecutors to risk their careers and reputations unless they knew it was a slam dunk: a quid pro quo, with a clear paper trail. Yet while the 57-page indictment alleges a lot of “quid,” there’s scant evidence of Adams delivering on the “quo.”
As attorneys James Burnham and Yaakov Roth explain so adeptly in the Wall Street Journal:
The indictment spends many paragraphs discussing benefits received—many of them travel and entertainment—but is light on official actions promised in return. Stripped of its innuendo, the indictment recounts a man who lived the high life while serving as Brooklyn borough president and mayor. Color us shocked that the celebrity mayor of the Big Apple encounters wealthy benefactors eager to pick up the check.
The worst that can be said of the “quo,” according to the two attorneys, is that Adams helped expedite the opening of the Turkish consulate in time for a presidential visit. In other words, helping to cut through red tape. While the determined prosecutor might be able to paint a technical crime, this hardly registers on the scale of corruption in American government.
So Adams seems to finally have woken up to the state of the current regime, even if he’s not the totally innocent victim he claims to be. Does this mean we can expect a cross-party Trump endorsement from him any day now? If he truly believes what he’s saying, he ought to. But certainly don’t hold your breath. Assuming he wants to get back to the “high life,” he’ll likely be more determined than ever now to get back in the regime’s good graces. And that means learning which lines to toe.
If he comes out of this politically intact, you can bet it’ll come with a sniveling public apology: “Diversity is our strength, and the DOJ did absolutely nothing wrong.”
This article was originally published at dailycaller.com
