Tag: Eric Adams

Three weeks ago, when I first wrote about FBI’s investigation of New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ campaign links to Turkey, I did not realize that this will be the opening of Pandora’s box.

Last week, Adams created a defense fund to raise money to pay the legal expenses for the expanding federal probe into his 2021 election campaign. The law permits Adams to receive donations up to $5,000. However, he must disclose the names and addresses of all donors.

According to the New York Post, “Federal authorities are investigating whether the Turkish government or Turkish citizens illegally funneled donations to Adams’ campaign by using ‘straw donors’ — a scheme where contributors listed in official records aren’t the actual source of funding — and whether Adams did quid-pro-quo favors.”

Multiple sources told the New York Post: “the Adams administration staffer who was found to have allegedly ‘acted improperly’ amid the federal corruption probe into his campaign fundraising worked in the city’s Office for International Affairs before abruptly being placed on leave.” The Mayor’s office confirmed the information.

That person is Rana Abbasova who was the Mayor’s Director of Protocol. Originally from Azerbaijan, she performed advanced planning and logistics for mayoral events and traveled with him. Her annual salary is $80,651. The Post was told that she lied to federal investigators.

Abbasova previously served as community coordinator and advisor to Adams when he was Brooklyn borough President. Her biography states that: “She was responsible for international relations and maintaining relationships between the Borough President and stakeholders, including the Middle East and Central Asian countries, Muslim and Russian-speaking communities, and Non-profit organizations. She also worked with Embassies and Consulates to build relationships between countries and the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President to help overcome language barriers and cultural differences. She also organized Turkic Heritage events and assisted with Sister Cities agreements. Abbasova was also an administrative assistant for Adams’ One Brooklyn Fund, Inc. when he was still borough President.”

The City news website reported that in April 2017, Abbasova arranged a meeting between borough President Adams and the Turken Foundation, founded by Pres. Erdogan’s son, Bilal. Three of Turken’s board members contributed a total of $6,000 to the Mayor’s campaign. His schedule shows that he attended four Turken events. Turken is registered as a foreign agent with the Department of Justice.

Abbasova arranged for Adams at least three “meetings and events related to Turkey when he was borough president, a review of his schedule shows. Among them was a 2015 grand opening celebration for a Turkish restaurant in Brooklyn, which she marked as ‘important.’”

POLITICO reported that as Brooklyn borough President, Adams “attended nearly 80 events over eight years celebrating Turkey — including a flag-raising in 2015, a charity ball in 2018 and a Zoom meeting with the Turkish consul in 2020.”

After reviewing thousands of Adams’ public schedules and many social media posts, POLITICO revealed his “unusually strong relationship with Turkey, which has drawn scrutiny from federal investigators.” In 2019, as Adams “was embarking on a run for New York City mayor, he joined Martha Stewart at a gala celebrating Turkish Airlines — a company now caught up in an ongoing FBI probe into Adams’ campaign finances. At the event, Adams was photographed holding hands with two company officials over a sheet cake; after winning the mayor’s race, he appointed one of those officials — Cenk Ocal — to his transition team.” The CNN reported that on Nov. 2, the home of a Turkish Airlines executive was among the locations raided by the FBI.

POLITICO’s analysis of Adams’ Brooklyn Borough schedules turned up three mentions of the Turkish airlines: Two planned banquets celebrating the carrier in 2019 and 2020, and a cryptic entry on Oct. 2, 2015 that simply read: “Reschedule 4 p.m. Turkish airline. Rana [Abbasova] my gifts.”

Daniel Nigro, then New York City Fire Commissioner, was pressured by Adams to permit, despite safety concerns, the opening of a high-rise building that housed the Turkish consulate, just in time for the arrival of Pres. Erdogan. Nigro received a grand jury subpoena and spoke to FBI agents.

After becoming Mayor last year, Adams made virtual remarks at a real estate conference in Istanbul, which was attended by two top city officials. However, the Mayor’s participation was left out of his daily public schedule and not reported.

In addition to the home of the fundraiser for the Mayor’s campaign, the FBI raided or conducted interviews at a dozen locations as part of its investigations of campaign contributions from Turkish sources, CNN reported.

In 2022, “Adams took two trips to Turkey — one in August funded by multiple entities including the Turkish consulate, according to a financial disclosure obtained by POLITICO. Local news outlet THE CITY recently reported Turkish Airlines also chipped in for that trip, but that was omitted from the required annual disclosure. Four months later, the financial disclosure shows, an organization called the Association of Young Tourism Leaders funded another trip to Turkey for Adams. The junkets were among a half-dozen trips the mayor has said he made to the country, including a 2017 sojourn with his son, Jordan,” according to POLITICO.

While visiting Turkey as Brooklyn Borough President, Adams said that he was interested in buying a house in Istanbul, according to the Turkish Sabah newspaper. Adams also said that he is so satisfied with Turkish Airlines that he not only uses that carrier to fly to Turkey, but also to other parts of the world, like India.

The FBI has now expanded its investigation of the alleged illegal fundraising links between New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ campaign and Turkish officials and individuals.

I reported last week that the FBI had raided the home of the Mayor’s campaign fundraiser, seizing three iPhones, two computers and various files. Boyd Johnson, an attorney retained by Adams, said that after the raid, “it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly.”

Since then, the FBI unexpectedly stopped the Mayor in the street and took his two cellphones and iPad, after obtaining a search warrant from the court. The FBI copied the contents of his electronic devices and returned them to the Mayor. Adams cancelled a planned trip to Puerto Rico to attend an important political conference.

There are three significant aspects to this latest development:

1)    The Federal Government is getting closer to investigating the personal links between the Mayor and Turkish officials and individuals who may have made illegal contributions to his political campaign.

2)    In order to obtain a search warrant from the court, the FBI had to present to the judge credible evidence of possible wrongdoing by the Mayor or his campaign. A similar warrant was obtained from court before searching the home of the Mayor’s fundraiser last week.

3)    The reason the Mayor was unexpectedly stopped in the street to take his electronic devices was to prevent him from having the opportunity to delete or alter information on his devices.

The New York Times reported on Nov. 12, 2023, that the FBI is “examining whether Adams cleared Red Tape for the Turkish government.” According to the news report, “after winning the 2021 Democratic Mayoral primary, Eric Adams successfully pressed [New York] city officials to allow the opening of a Manhattan high-rise building housing the Turkish Consulate.”

The New York Times revealed that “the Federal authorities are investigating whether Mayor Eric Adams weeks before his election two years ago, pressured New York Fire Department officials to sign off on the Turkish government’s new high-rise consulate in Manhattan despite safety concerns with the building, three people with knowledge of the matter said.”

The New York Times added: “After winning the Democratic mayoral primary in July, Adams contacted then-Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro in late summer 2021 and urged him to allow the Turkish government to occupy the building at least on a temporary basis. The building had yet to open because fire officials had cited safety issues and declined to sign off on its occupancy, the people said…. The building is still operating under a temporary certificate of occupancy, records show.”

The Mayor’s intervention made it possible for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “to preside over the grand opening of the $300 million, 35-story tower on his September 2021 visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly, despite numerous flaws in its fire safety system, according to the people familiar with the matter and city records,” according to The New York Times.

“The federal criminal inquiry has focused at least in part on whether Adams’ 2021 campaign conspired with the Turkish government, including its consulate general in New York, to illegally funnel foreign money into its coffers, according to a search warrant obtained by The New York Times for an F.B.I. search this month of the home of the mayor’s chief fund-raiser…. Adams’ ties to the Turkish government and community stretch back years. As Brooklyn borough president, he actively wooed wealthy members of the Turkish community in south Brooklyn. In August 2015, the Turkish consulate in New York paid for Adams’ airfare, hotel and ground transportation for a trip to Turkey, according to financial disclosure records. There, Adams signed a sister-city agreement with Istanbul’s Uskudar municipality, one of several he executed with foreign cities he traveled to as borough president. He also visited Bahcesehir University, founded by the same Turkish philanthropist who founded Bay Atlantic University in Washington, D.C.,” The New York Times reported.

Furthermore, the FBI is investigating “the role of KSK Construction, a Brooklyn building company owned by Turkish immigrants that organized a fund-raising event for Adams on May 7, 2021. On that day, 48 donors, including the company’s owners, employees and their families, along with others in the construction and real estate industries, donated $43,600, Adams’ campaign reports show. Those contributions enabled him to obtain another $48,000 in public matching funds for a total of nearly $92,000,” according to The New York Times.

Three American members of the board of the Turken Foundation, which was founded by Bilal Erdogan, the son of President Erdogan, donated $6,000 to Adams’ campaign between 2018 and 2021, according to The City website. The foundation is registered as a foreign agent with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Oddly, Eric Adams, then-Brooklyn borough president, played himself in a 2017 Turkish romantic comedy film, ‘Fairytale of New York,’ where two Turkish men ask him for political favors but he says he can’t understand them. Adams tells the Turks in the film: “Brooklyn loves Turkey. Brooklyn is the Istanbul of America. We love your food, we love your music, but I don’t understand Turkish, we can take a selfie though.”