- The New York City mayor has begun formally challenging last week’s bribery and fraud indictment.
- His arguments in Monday’s motion to dismiss amount to this: SCOTUS lets me do it.
- A recent Supreme Court decision helps Adams by requiring a specific quid-pro-quo to prove bribery.
In his first formal attack on last week’s sweeping public corruption indictment, New York City Mayor Eric Adams takes aim at what his lawyer says is the weakest of the five federal charges: bribery.
Adams’ argument? It’s not bribery if the US Supreme Court lets you do it.
In a court filing on Monday, Adams attorney Alex Spiro cites a groundbreaking June SCOTUS decision as reason enough to toss the bribery count.
The decision is Snyder v. United States. It says handing a politician a bag of money is essentially A-OK under federal law, so long as there is no specifically stated quid-pro-quo.
In Adams’ case, the Turkish officials who gave him $100,000 in upgraded flights and luxurious hotel stays never specifically linked those perks to a specific request for something in return, Spiro argues.
And these were gratuities, not bribes, the lawyer says.
At a press conference after the motion was filed, Spiro compared Adams’ $100,000 in flights and accommodations to perks like a hotel room upgrade or a good table at a restaurant, which are regularly extended to politicians.
“The indictment does not sufficiently allege that Adams agreed to accept benefits in exchange for performing an official act,” Spiro wrote in Monday’s 25-page motion.
It’s the first time Snyder — a case named for an Indiana mayor who took $13,000 from a truck company — is being cited as a defense in a major public corruption prosecution.
It makes perfect sense for Adams to cite it, said Michel Paradis, an attorney who teaches national security and constitutional law at Columbia Law School.
“Snyder will be helpful to Adams principally in really putting the government to its proof on the quid-pro-quo elements of the case,” Paradis said.
Prosecutors were “clearly cognizant of Snyder in how [they] framed the indictment, to show the kind of close nexus between the quids and the quos that the Court now insists upon,” he added.
Federal prosecutors say Adams enjoyed nearly a decade of globe-circling Turkish Airlines trips. They say that in return, Turkish officials asked for a few small favors from Adams, including that he not mention the Armenian genocide, and that he sever ties with a particular community center.
They also say Turkey asked Adams for a large favor, one that Adams granted: in 2021, the then-leading mayoral candidate leaned on city fire officials to bend the rules and approve occupancy for a Midtown skyscraper that held the Turkish consulate.
The indictment quotes an unnamed Turkish official telling an Adams staffer that because Turkey had supported the soon-to-be mayor, it was now “his turn” — meaning Adams’ — to support Turkey by getting the consulate opened.
“I know,” the feds say Adams responded when told by the staffer that Turkey saw this as “his turn” to reciprocate.
Spiro says in his filing that the travel perks Adams enjoyed are the kind of gifts that constituents or foreign dignitaries routinely give, to show their appreciation or gain access to a politician.
Snyder — in a majority opinion written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh and joined by the current conservative supermajority’s five other justices — broadens the definition of “gratuities” and limits the definition of “bribes.”
(In addition to Spiro, Adams is represented by Avi Perry and William Burck. Burck is on the board of Fox Corp, clerked for Anthony Kennedy, and, according to the New York Times, is a friend of Kavanaugh.)
In this new, post-Snyder world, the feds must prove that a politician clearly knew that cash or goods are being offered as payment for an official act, and that the official act was taken specifically in response to that offer.
Critics of the SCOTUS ruling feared it would open the door to politicians freely taking handouts.
“Adams will argue that the Turkish government gave him things out of gratitude for his past friendliness toward Turkey’s interests,” merely as a “thank you,” Paradis told Business Insider.
Meanwhile, “the government will argue that Turkey gave him goodies, and he accepted those goodies, on the understanding that he would continue to use his political position for Turkey’s benefit,” the constitutional law expert said.
“Prior to Snyder, the government would not have had to show such a tight connection between the bribes and the expectation that Adams would do things for them in the future,” Paradis added.
“Now they do, which is why the indictment puts a lot of emphasis on the consulate and the Armenian genocide allegations.”
Federal prosecutors have yet to respond to the motion to dismiss.
The Justice Department and Spiro didn’t immediately return requests for comment for this story Monday afternoon.
Adams has pleaded not guilty to the indictment, which also charges him with illegally accepting campaign contributions from Turkish officials and others via straw donors.
If convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum of 45 years in prison.
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