From WNYC Studios. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Thursday,

September 26th. As we follow the breaking news of the indictment of Mayor Eric Adams this morning,

we're going to bring on our next guest in just

a couple of minutes. But I thought before we do that, I would just read some of the text

of the actual indictment as it's been released. So I'm going to read just from the very start of it.

And it actually starts a decade ago. It says in 2014, Eric Adams, the defendant,

became Brooklyn Borough President. Thereafter, for nearly a decade, Adam sought and accepted

improper valuable benefits such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign business people and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him.

By 2018, Adams, who had by then made known his plans to run for mayor of New York City, not only accepted but sought illegal campaign contributions to

his 2021 mayoral campaign, as well as other things of value from foreign nationals. As Adam's

prominence and power grew, his foreign national benefactors sought to cash in on their

corrupt relationships with him, particularly when in

2021 it became clear that Adams would become New York City's mayor. It continues, Adams agreed,

providing favorable treatment in exchange for the illicit benefits he received. After his inauguration as mayor of New York City,

Adam soon began preparing for his next election,

including by planning to solicit more illegal contributions

and granting requests from those who supported his 2021 mayoral campaign with such donations.

So that's in the indictment.

With us now, Andrew Weissman, NYU Law Professor and MSNBC Legal Analyst and author of books,

including where law ends inside the Mueller investigation.

Andrew was a top prosecutor under Mueller in that Russia investigation and the book,

The Trump Indictments, the Historic Charging Documents with Commentary. Well, now we have a

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