Who couldn’t have seen this coming? Not that clairvoyance would have filled in the specifics like these: In a 57-page indictment on Thursday morning, federal prosecutors laid out charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, including receiving luxury hotel and restaurant accommodations along with campaign contributions from Turkish nationals who wanted to influence the mayor.
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New York City’s second Black mayor being formally accused by federal prosecutors of allegedly taking bribes from the Turkish government sounds more like the plot of a Tom Clancy or Stacey Abrams political thriller than even a Miss Cleo prediction. Instead, it’s real life, and in hindsight, we had all the clues that the experiment that was the Eric Adams administration wouldn’t end well.
How, you ask? History’s been tipping us off since Day One. Adams brought a compelling backstory to his campaign to be mayor of a New York that felt like it was in crisis in the post-pandemic era. Residents were leaving, businesses were closing and a narrative that Gotham just wasn’t safe anymore took hold. Adams, a well-connected former Brooklyn borough president, was also a former cop who rose through the NYPDs ranks with stories of having himself suffered humiliation and abuse of its officers. If anyone understood how to steer the city back toward safety for everyone, he told New Yorkers, it was him.
But buying into that campaign pitch always required ignoring the omens. There was at least circumstantial evidence that Adams’s NYC address wasn’t actually where he lived. And his tough talk about how to save New York always echoed the rhetoric of other politicians who used fear–specifically the fear of crime–to gather votes and distract from disastrous flaws of either personality, politics or both.
Rudy Guiliani made his name prosecuting the New York mafia’s Five Families and promised, like Adams, that as mayor, he’d reduce street crime and make New Yorkers feel safe again. Instead, he presided over an era of gruesome and unchecked police violence, against Black men especially. Abner Louima was tortured and sodomized with a plunger by cops in a Brooklyn police station. Amadou Diallo was killed in a hail of 41 bullets by NYPD cops who couldn’t tell the difference between his wallet and a gun, which he didn’t have. We know where Guiliani ended up: disbarred from practicing law and disgraced for trying to help Donald Trump use lies and conspiracy theories to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Speaking of Trump, his own used of fear tactics–placing a full-page ad calling for the execution of five Black teenagers falsely accused and prosecuted for a Central Park rape–foreshadowed his racist, fearmongering presidency. He’s now a convicted felon, which hasn’t yet stopped him from seeking the presidency again.
Eric Adams isn’t these men, but his rhetoric on crime, safety and fear–and his fate, landing under federal prosecution–tracks. Here at The Root, we told you about how after his election, he promised to flood New York’s subways with cops, his policy of bringing back solitary confinement to Rikers Island, his argument that no one who hadn’t worn an NYPD uniform could criticize him –eliminating almost everyone in New York and beyond–and his plans to re-institute an NYPD anti-violence unit that had been disbanded over its own notorious use of violence against citizens.
We also warned about his questionable pick of a deputy mayor for public safety, who had previously resigned from the department while under federal investigation for corruption. That guy? A company he ran before Adams appointed him now figures prominently into the federal corruption investigation into the Adams administration.
About that Turkish Plot. Adams faces charges including conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The feds outlined the alleged plot that reached back a decade ago. According to the indictment, the whole purpose was to provide illegal funds to Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign. The schemers, according to officials, were Turkish nationals who also showered Adams with rooms at expensive hotels and meals at top restaurants.
In fairness, we won’t know until at least hours from now what, exactly, is in the indictment against Adams. Even then, he’ll be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, assuming the Feds’ case makes it to trial. Adams has already released a video maintaining his innocence, as is his right.
Still, it’s hard to look back and think that we hadn’t all seen this movie before and wonder why so many people went to the polls in 2021 eager to pay the high price of admission again.
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