Lawfare Archive: Mayor Adams, the Feds, and a Whole Lot of Foreign Money
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 3 January 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From September 30, 2024: New York Mayor Eric Adams is facing indictment in connection with a foreign influence scheme involving Turkey. It’s the latest in a long string of actions by the Justice Department to counter foreign efforts to interfere in the American political system. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Managing Editor Tyler McBrien, Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic, and Contributing Editor Brandon Van Grack to discuss the charges against Adams and the larger pattern of which they are a part.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Isabella Royal, intern at Lawfare, with an episode from the Lawfare |
| 0:14.0 | for January 3, 2006. Two days ago, on January 1st, Zora and Mamdani was sworn in as the 111st mayor of New York City. |
| 0:23.7 | For today's archive, I chose an episode from September 30th, 2004, in which Benjamin Wittis, |
| 0:29.5 | Tyler McBrion, Quintagheressic, and Brandon Van Grak discussed the Justice Department's |
| 0:34.0 | then recent indictment of Mumdani's predecessor, former New York Mayor Eric Adams, |
| 0:39.3 | in connection with an alleged foreign influence scheme involving the Turkish government. |
| 0:43.3 | Four months after this episode was recorded, in February 2025, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bovi |
| 0:49.3 | issued a memo ordering federal prosecutors in New York to drop the charges against Adams, on the basis that Adams' prosecution could improperly sway the 2025 mayoral election, |
| 0:59.0 | that the proceedings risked creating an appearance of impropriety because they were launched after Adams criticized President Biden's immigration policies, |
| 1:06.0 | and that the prosecution would distract to then-Mayor Adams from properly addressing illegal immigration and violent crime in New York City. |
| 1:14.6 | The case was dismissed in April by District Judge Dale Hove, |
| 1:18.6 | following a series of high-profile resignations by federal prosecutors in New York who refused to follow Bowie's order. |
| 1:26.6 | The to follow Bowie's order. |
| 1:42.5 | I'm Benjamin Wittes, and this is the Lawfare podcast with managing editor Tyler McBrion, senior editor Quinta Jurecic, |
| 1:46.0 | and contributing editor Brandon Van Grak. |
| 1:50.5 | Adams had a very, very narrow victory in a very, you know, tightly contested race. |
| 1:57.4 | And so it is extremely conceivable to me that this money could have really given |
| 2:03.2 | Adams a potential edge here. Today we're talking the indictment of New York Mayor Eric Adams, |
| 2:12.6 | the latest in the Justice Department's string of foreign interference in U.S. politics cases. |
| 2:20.3 | All right, Tyler, I want to start with the indictment, which in some ways was the least |
| 2:28.3 | surprising indictment in the history of foreign influence indictments. We've kind of been expecting it for a while, |
| 2:39.9 | and yet it hit like a bang. So walk us through what are the allegations here and what is |
... |
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