Eric Adams was indicted on federal corruption charges on Thursday, the first sitting mayor in New York’s history to be brought up on federal charges. The indictment accused Adams of five counts of bribery, wire fraud, and solicitation of donations from foreign nationals.
I wish I could say I was surprised. But I saw this coming.
Back in 2021 at a mayoral debate, I said, “Eric, we all know you’ve been investigated for corruption everywhere you’ve gone, city state and federal. You’ve achieved the rare trifecta of corruption investigations. Is that really what we want in the next mayor? [If] you enter City Hall it’s going to be exactly the same.”
This is someone who had managed to run afoul of the rules at every step of the political ladder. Even the union he once belonged to, the police captains union, had chosen not to endorse him. One reason I ran was that I thought I could run a good, clean, competent administration.
After Eric won, I hoped it would work out. My son was in public school. But when asked how I thought it would go, privately, I said, “When you put someone undisciplined and unprincipled in charge of a lot of people and resources, bad things generally happen.”
Eric had a habit of hiring close friends, associates and confidantes for important roles that may or may not match up with their capacities or qualifications. I thought it was quite likely that his administration would be dogged by corruption, cronyism and self-dealing.
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Even with these expectations, the past several weeks have been stunning. A police commissioner, school chancellor, chief lawyer, and the head of the department of health all resigning. Numerous associates under a cloud of federal investigations and confiscated personal devices.
And now this historic indictment.
I read the indictment with a mixture of curiosity and incredulity.
Do I believe that Eric Adams accepted luxury flights and accommodations from the Turkish government and then tried to return the favor? Sure.
More troublingly, do I think Eric Adams solicited donations from foreign nationals? Yes I do.
When I was running against Eric in 2021, I was surprised by his fundraising hauls. I had a national network and wound up getting the highest number of individual donors—21,960—in the history of New York City elections. But at every turn, Eric kept pace.
Now it turns out that some of his campaign money may have been from foreign nationals. New York City’s donor matching program provides a powerful incentive for fraud—donations from city residents were matched eight to one, up to $250. That means if someone donated $250, your campaign received $250 from them and another $2,000 from the City.
In this context, if someone ran a small company in NYC with 12 employees, the temptation would be to say, “Hey, we’re going to say each of you donated $250, and that’s going to get $24,000 for our candidate!” If you were the head of this small company, you could put up the money for your employees—say $3,000—and then the candidate would walk away with $27,000, most of which was from taxpayers.
I like this matching system; it did what it was intended to do. It gave candidates who were lesser fundraisers like Kathryn Garcia a chance to be competitive if they could activate small donors. But bad actors could abuse it. And it looks like Eric Adams did just that. Yes, foreign actors probably used taxpayer money to boost their chosen candidate in the hopes that they would get their back scratched after the fact.
Over the past several years, my campaign has been audited by the New York City Campaign Finance Board to see whether all of the donations were properly documented. The truth is that you don’t always have visibility into the people who donate to your campaign; there are thousands of people who do so for different reasons. But when I was campaigning, if I found out someone was a foreign national I would immediately say, “Oh, you can’t donate. But if you know any New York residents, tell them!”
The charges against Eric Adams are, on one level, depressingly simple: He liked fancy flights and hotels, and allegedly took them. He saw a shortcut to raise money from his friends with foreign passports and allegedly took that too. This wasn’t a very sophisticated operation. Instead, it’s the story of a local politician who was used to favor trading who didn’t realize that some of these things might speed his downfall when he got a bigger job and a bigger spotlight. One of my friends joked, “He doesn’t even do corruption well.”
So what now? First, Eric Adams should resign. It’s impossible for him now to be an effective mayor who can enlist and retain qualified leaders to move the city forward. Who would join this administration now with him at the helm?
Reports are that City Hall personnel are almost understandably preoccupied with figuring out what comes next, and who might be coming or going. I’ve spoken to rank-and-file employees who are deeply demoralized. Meanwhile, life goes on for a bustling city of 8.3 million seeking the best for themselves and their families.
If Eric Adams truly wants what’s best for the people of New York City, he should step down.
If Adams doesn’t resign, he will lose his bid for re-election next year. His approval rating was historically weak even before these charges were brought. But that’s a year of rudderless agencies and festering problems, a year that the people of New York can’t afford. Things don’t stay the same; they get better or worse, and without leadership, they will almost certainly get worse.
Eric Adams’ story is a sad one, of a police officer turned local official turned mayor and now federal defendant. His political career is ending, and it’s time for his city to move on.
Andrew Yang is a businessman, lawyer, philanthropist, and former candidate for president of the United States. In July 2022, Yang, alongside Democrats, Republicans and Independents, launched the new Forward Party to give Americans more choice in our democracy.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
