The Eric Adams Indictment Is Objectively Hilarious

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:02 Clip: Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.

0:00:18 Clip: What's my crime? I got bold? And a little negligent? Nope!

0:00:26 Clip: Bailiffs are coming to take away my will to live. Well, one count of being a bear, and one count of being an accessory to being a bare. This is a free court!

0:00:45 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Open Arguments. This is episode 1073. I am your host, Thomas Smith. That over there is real-life lawyer, Matt, mayoral candidate, Matt Cameron.

0:00:53 Matt: Right hey it's up for grabs let's do it I just finished off a old great plate of falafel I'm feeling good in honor of tonight's episode yeah tasty stuff love me for some falafels and so does eric adams apparently it's I mean it's turkish food you can't go wrong everybody loves turkish food

0:00:56 Thomas: How Wow. Oh, really? That have some connection to, I haven't listened to this episode yet. So does that have, oh, purchased by Turkey. Holy moly.

0:01:13 Matt: We're talking today about the mayor of new york city being purchased by turkey that is what's going on yeah the country of turkey yeah

0:01:21 Thomas: Oh. I can't wait to listen to this episode of Opening Arguments. I knew the indictment and like, you know, obviously I've known he's a piece of crap for a while, but like, I don't know is that all right okay I've been pumped to do this episode all right well that uh pretty much gives away what we're covering today there's this not requires a full episode so I'm really excited to go through this indictment uh see any announcements oh yeah there's going to be uh check out a lot of weird owl debating on patreon/law and actually I do want to make clear we do a little fun weird owl debating but also we talk a ton of music law Really interesting stuff there. So it's not just, don't worry, it's not just opinions on Weird Al. That's just a fun thing we're doing. But we talk a lot about understanding kind of the rights about parody versus, you know, satire versus covers. It's really interesting stuff.

0:01:23 Matt: An indictment yeah yeah that's what's happening it really does quite a lot get some sampling in there good times yeah

0:02:11 Thomas: Sampling as well, yeah. And in case didn't know, Matt is not only a lawyer, he's also a musician. So it is a whole new and fun thing to speak to a lawyer who is also a musician and something of what he's talking about around that area. So it a lot of fun, and I hope you'll check it out, patreon.com/law.

0:02:30 Thomas: .com right, let's take a break, and then let's get to our Turkish delight.

0:02:28 Matt: Was yeah it's a good one gara suras

0:02:37 Thomas: Yeah, is he the Turkish delight, or is this episode Turkish, or is the indictment Turkish delight? I don't know. Yeah, that's fair.

0:02:37 Matt: The thing's delightful I think I think you'll enjoy it.

0:02:47 Thomas: Right. Who's Where Eric Adams?

0:02:49 Matt: There we go. Let's talk about Eric Adams. For those of you who don't follow New York politics. Now, okay, I will disclose my bias. I am a resident of the city of Boston. I own a house in the city of Boston, I'm currently sitting in the City of Boston in my office recording this. You may know that Boston and New York don't get along so well, we don't like each other very much, and gotta say, after reading this indictment, Boston is so much better at corruption, we're so much bitter at this. Like, what are you guys doing?

0:03:11 Matt: This is absurd. Third. This is the dumbest corruption on earth. I mean, everybody knows you got to get your cousin solely to open a company and then you work through the statees and you funnel the money through them. And then you go through the speaker of the house and you start a software company and you just a couple of extra steps. It's not that hard.

0:03:10 Thomas: Yeah no that's that's fair yeah well new york also had and you don't get to cherry pick who your corruption example is because new yorke also had what's his name the lyingest liar to ever lie house member that finally right wasn't he for Santos and wait wait a minute is what's um Menendez he New York too oh jersey okay okay sorry apologies

0:03:33 Matt: It is George Santos. Yeah. Yeah, he's Jersey. He's Jersey, but I mean close enough, honestly, I mean it's really

0:03:45 Thomas: Something about the the water out in that area makes the corruption more dumb.

0:03:50 Matt: Stupid.

0:03:51 Thomas: You got to get yourselves better corruption. I agree with that.

0:03:51 Matt: I'm not saying, yeah, Yeah. Mean, and we've had like three successive speakers of the House indicted in Massachusetts, but not for these kinds of reasons. I means, there was a fax number in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the legislative body in our state house, in which you could just fax and get your cousin a job. Like that was in probation, the probation office. Like, that was just a thing. We just had a probation scandal, and nobody responsible for it went down, of course.

0:04:14 Thomas: Was that a reward for knowing how to fax something still in the year 2024?

0:04:17 Matt: They Yeah.

0:04:18 Thomas: Because I actually agree with That. That should be, it's like a cool perk.

0:04:20 Matt: Automatic. A plus. Yeah. Eric Adams is the mayor of New York. He won very narrowly in 2020. is the second black mayor ever. And he is, I will say, actually, interesting fact, he actually was the first mayor elected through ranked choice voting, which I generally support. Support, but this is not really, no, this is not an endorsement of rank choice voting, I gotta say. So, he, he's got a pretty good backstory. He grew up in Queens, one of six kids. He was not well off at all, and he became a police officer because he wanted to try to change the system from the inside. So he was a cop for 22 years, and he was elected as a cop,

0:04:36 Thomas: But geez, this is not a good advertisement for that. Holy smokes. Yeah. Yeah.

0:04:58 Thomas: Okay, I will. So I'm going to stop you right there because listened to a lot if books can kill and those folks seem to have it out for Eric Adams, or at least he had a target on his back. And the way they covered it, he's made massive amounts of contradictory statements about his life and stuff. So I just want a flag that perhaps I'm not sure if all these details will be exactly correct because it seems like he changes his story of what he was doing throughout his life all the time.

0:05:07 Matt: Is fair. Yes. He's not so good with the truth, I will say that. But I mean, the basics here, he did grow up as one of six, and, you know, he did grub in fairly modest circumstances. And he was a gang member at one point as a kid. And, you know, he had a bad run -ins with the police. He felt like he could do better when he became became a cop. And, know, he was elected as a law and order candidate. He was a moderate Democrat. He called himself the Biden of Brooklyn. And he was the Brooklyn borough president before this, which isn't really a job exactly, but it's, yeah, it doesn't really do anything as far as I know.

0:05:56 Thomas: Didn't know they had that what is

0:05:58 Matt: Yeah, exactly. It's not really even anything. He, you knows, rose up to become the mayor of arguably the most important city in the United States and one of the most important cities in the world, which is why we're talking about it.

0:05:58 Thomas: The president yeah

0:06:10 Matt: And he did a bunch of really dumb stuff. I have this great quote here from Politico, which really summarizes my feelings about Eric Adams. Wrote that, in a city of weird people and weird mayors, Adams is maybe the most idiosyncratic figure to ever hold the office. And now the first one to be indicted. Coincidence? I don't know. Well, a sitting mayor to be indicted.

0:06:09 Thomas: Yeah uh what's the timing of Rudy Giuliani's uh indictment oh okay sure sure sure

0:06:36 Matt: Right, sure, sure. For doing mayor stuff. Just indicted, again, part this, I think, is just the entitlement of being a cop. I really think it comes with, you just do whatever you want.

0:06:36 Thomas: We're doing weird stuff oh yeah he's like oh yeah there's no such thing as consequences so you can do whatever you want yeah

0:06:51 Matt: Nobody's ever going to get a search warrant on my phone, and certainly not on anybody around me. And he's built up a network of people who are completely loyal to him, all of which, not all of whom, but quite a number of whom are now facing their own problems, a number of whom have flipped on him, apparently, to come up with this indictment. So the indictment itself legally is pretty simple, but it's actually really worth reading. I'm going to have you read some portions of it. I'll read some proportions. I will give you a few assignments here.

0:07:16 Matt: And I it is really just as a piece of literature, and just to really bring out how stupid this whole thing is. I mean, I don't think that I really need to explain to listeners why it's a crime to take money from a foreign country first of all you know you can't receive those as campaign donations you can just have foreign nationals and foreign countries give you campaign donations I think we all understand that I that's right yeah yeah that's the quid he received quite a lot of contributions. And there's a pretty massive quote that we're going to get to here on the other side of that. But the kind of pathetic thing about this is it wasn't just campaign donations, which is pretty significant. And that's a major part of the indictment. He was also taking a bunch of weird travel stuff. And again, we all enjoy travel, but he's really taking it to another level, as we're gonna see, of taking weird perks and going out of his way to make use of these perks. And all in all, it comes out to about $100,000 in graft.

0:07:35 Thomas: Then he's like, wait, but I don't have to know the law. Oh, that was when I was a cop. Damn it.

0:08:11 Matt: And yeah, that's not that that much that's not that much at all and

0:08:11 Thomas: My God. That's it. You're going to give up being a of a massive city in a position of prominence for one hundred thousand dollars.

0:08:20 Matt: For some trips for some luxury trips is what it comes down to you know what you should be as a supreme court justice because apparently you can just do that for decades and nobody cares

0:08:27 Thomas: You You know, I'm not wrong. I'm I'm wrong. I'm in the wrong line of work. What are you thinking?

0:08:29 Matt: Um you know Eric Adams has been a weird guy as I said it is it is incredible for quite a while um remember during the campaign he claimed to be vegan and he also claimed to live in New York and neither of those things might have been

0:08:39 Thomas: That's right. I forgot about that.

0:08:41 Matt: At one point, he was passing off his son's house as his house. He may have been living in New Jersey with his partner at some point during that time, maybe not eligible to run. May or may not be vegan and also eat fish, which is fine. You know, whatever. I mean, I'm vegetarian and eat fish sometimes. But, you know, just maybe keep a consistent story about who you are. He's just said a bunch of weird stuff, done a bunch of weird stuff. And he's just really bad at corruption. I just don't want to emphasize again. And let's get into a little bit. The charges here come down to five charges. We've got conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Pretty straightforward. He illegally accepted travel perks. He solicited foreign campaign contributions. And improperly influenced the approval of a building that we're going to talk about. Pretty bad, actually. This is like really straightforward. It's so funny. We're just talking about this on the car. And Casey's like, this is just classic public corruption. This is like the definition of what public corruption is. So you've got conspiracy to commit wire fraud because he's working with other people to do these things. You've got wire fraud in which he accepted matching funds that we'll talk about and used straw donors to try to very badly hide that he was receiving debt money he wasn't supposed to be getting. Solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national because he solicited and received improper campaign contributions through foreign citizens, obviously. And of course, bribery, the big one, because he got all this free travel and understanding, of course, that the Turkish government had helped him get elected in exchange for the construction of this building that we're going to talk about. So just up front,

0:10:04 Matt: I will tell you that his defense to these charges, have you heard his defense yet? Pretty good.

0:10:08 Thomas: I don't even care, I'll be honest, no, sorry, I didn't care enough to hear it outside of this show, I'm excited to hear it on this show.

0:10:13 Matt: It's not worth listening to him talk about it. And I will say he's actually retained a friend of the show, Alex Spiro, who represented Alec Baldwin, you might remember. Yep. Superstar New York defense attorney. Heard I his explanation today. I did not find it to be very convincing, but there may be more coming for

0:10:20 Thomas: For why he took on the client, or for, sorry.

0:10:27 Matt: Just his sort of opening argument as to why this is not going to be a case. Yeah. Now, let's listen actually to Eric Adams though, because I think it's interesting. We should hear him talk before we start to get into the indictment. And I think you should hear about what he's saying about this.

0:10:33 Thomas: Spiros, The or, okay, yeah.

0:10:42 Matt: So I've got to, This is a press conference he held before the indictment came out.

0:10:42 Thomas: Okay, here we go.

0:10:46 Clip: Is now my belief that the federal government intends to charge me with crimes. If so, these charges would be entirely false based on lies. But they would not be surprising. I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, that I would be a target. And a target I became. Came. For months, leaks and rumors have been aimed at me in an attempt to undermine my credibility and paint me as guilty. Just this past week, they searched the home of our new police commissioner looking for documents from 20 years ago, just one week after he joined my administration. Enough. I will fight these injustices with every ounce of my strength and my spirit. If I'm charged, I know I am innocent. I will request an immediate trial so the New Yorkers can hear the truth. New Yorker's know my story. They know where I come from. I have been fighting injustice my entire life. That fight has continued as your mayor. Despite our police, when the federal government did nothing as its broken immigration policies overloaded our shelter system with no relief. I put the people of New York before party and politics.

0:11:03 Thomas: What? They are pretty surprising. Huh? Oh, that, okay. Oh,

0:12:20 Clip: If I am charged, many may say I should resign because I cannot manage the city while fighting the case. I can also understand how everyday New Yorkers would be concerned that I cannot do my job while I face accusation but I have been facing these lies for months since I began to speak out for all of you and their investigation started yet the city has continued to improve make no mistake you elected me to lead this city and lead it I will I humbly ask for your prayers and your patience as we see this through God God bless you and God bless the city of New York.

0:12:20 Thomas: He's still going. I'm doing a great job. I am convinced.

0:13:08 Matt: Thought that was worth playing. Yeah, exactly. So first of all, if you were going to be casting this man for SNL, who do you cast?

0:13:14 Thomas: Well, I mean, this is classic Tracy Morgan. Yeah, it's pretty much exactly Tracy Morgan.

0:13:18 Matt: Is Tracy Morgan. He sounds exactly like Tracy Morgan to me. That's all I can hear.

0:13:21 Thomas: I know. Yeah.

0:13:21 Matt: I can't unhear it.

0:13:22 Thomas: It's a good point.

0:13:23 Matt: Because he says a lot of ridiculous things, too, so that doesn't help. So, okay. His main defense right now is that Joe Biden turned on him.

0:13:25 Thomas: This is a witch hunt. Yeah right.

0:13:33 Matt: It's a witch hunt because he spoke out against the way that migrants are coming to New York City, that he was talking about how they're breaking the bank. So they came up with these things. I just wanted to get this out up front because as we go through the indictment, which of course was not released at the time that he made this statement, that will become increasingly ridiculous as you start to see the evidence mount because they're, again, and I cannot emphasize this enough, so bad at this. They are so bad. At corruption. Right, let's get into the indictment. Together and enjoy this fine piece of federal literature. This is, of course, from the SDNY, one of the top prosecutor's offices in the country, in the mother court.

0:14:03 Thomas: But I don't read. So no, I'm just kidding. Do you mean the mother court to

0:14:14 Matt: Of course, we can't get away from the other court. We just keep coming back to it. People do not mess around, especially if they're going to be charging the mayor of one of the most important cities in the country. This is not a joke. This is a very serious prosecution. Potentially up to 25 years. He's not going to be doing that. But that's about what this could add up to. So let's just pick a few paragraphs here so we can get the idea. Indictment is a good read. It's a classic sort of speaking indictment. It takes you through the entire story of Eric Adams, from Brooklyn president to coming up through his campaign. It just happens that

0:14:46 Thomas: His Time on SNL and then 30 Rock.

0:14:50 Matt: And the car crash, of course. And he's got so many different contacts with Turkey, which is very strange, of course. Not what you'd expect out of left field. Now, I've been following this story a little bit. I knew there was some sort of Turkish construction company. I knew that there were some allegations of bribery, but just to see it all laid out in one place. Start with number four.

0:14:52 Thomas: That is very weird. Now, number Adams, the defendant, also sought and received other improper benefits from some of the same co-conspirators who funneled straw donations to his campaigns. In particular, a senior official in the Turkish diplomatic establishment, the Turkish official who facilitated many straw donations to Adams, also arranged for Adams and his companions to receive free or discounted travel on Turkey's national airline, Turkish Airlines, which is owned in significant part by the Turkish government, to including France, China, Sri Lanka, India, Hungary, and itself. Turkish official and other Turkish nationals further arranged for Adams and his companions to receive, among other things, bags of the little chips that they give, the little pretzels.

0:15:49 Thomas: It sounds like that level of corruption. Like, is it a couple of flights that, you know, cost, like, a little bit? Like, okay. Among other things, free rooms at opulent hotels. Oh, okay, we've reached opulent. That's good. If you're doing corruption, like getting to the opulent level is probably better than nothing. Opulent hotels, free meals at high -end restaurants, and free luxurious entertainment while in Turkey. Ah, that sounds like it could be a little X -rated there.

0:15:51 Matt: It does. It really does. Yeah, a little sketch. Yeah? Allegation is about $123,000 worth of flight upgrades and tickets. So just again, considering as we go through this, was this worth it? Because we all enjoy travel, and we all enjoy business class, I'm sure. I've never flown business class on Turkish Airlines. I've been on Turkish airlines. It's a great airline. Business clocks look really nice, but I wouldn't go to prison for it. I'll tell you that.

0:16:37 Matt: So let's get to number six, because it's going to get a lot worse.

0:16:41 Thomas: The Turkish official told Eric Adams, the defendant, that it was his turn to repay the Turkish official by pressuring the New York City Fire Department, FDNY, to facilitate the opening of a new Turkish consular building, a 36 -story skyscraper, without a fire inspection in time for a high -profile visit by Turkey's president. At the time, the building would have failed an FDNY inspection. In exchange for free travel and other travel -related bribes, in and 2022, arranged by the Turkish official, Adams did as instructed. Because of Adams' pressure on the FDNY, the FDNY official responsible for the FDNY's assessment of the skyscraper's fire safety was told that he would lose his job if he failed to acquiesce. And after Adams intervened, the Turkish official.

0:17:27 Matt: This is by far the worst allegation, obviously, is that you rushed through the construction of a 36 -story building on behalf of government the Turkish just to time it with the high visit of Turkey's president, that you rushed it, something that would have failed a fire department inspection.

0:17:41 Thomas: It's so weird from Turkey's perspective, too. It's like you're like, you know, sometimes they may never come. I may ask you to do a favor. It's like rushing fire safety. I feel like just do the fire safety like that would be weird.

0:17:53 Matt: We don't want a safe building? I mean, that's just really strange. I know some of that stuff is nonsense, but presumably there was something like 60 defects that were identified, and he had to push really hard and you notice too this isn't really really talked about much but he says it says right here in the indictment that they told the fdny official that he would lose his job if he didn't acquiesce that is really serious I think that could be another charge in itself but that's certainly a labor issue like you can't just I mean that's that's really bad that's again though quid pro quo it's right there he receives money he promises the turkish government that he's going to do something and he does this thing with the skyscraper uh we'll talk more about the know, essentially we start to learn about all these trips to Turkey he's taking. And Eric Adams loves travel. It's pretty well known. That's fine. I do too. He also is in a position to be able to pay for his own travel. And this is going to get increasingly ridiculous about the ways that he enjoys this free stuff.

0:18:11 Thomas: That's the part I was going to say, too, yeah. Yeah that sucks is this all while he's may like when was this again is this during

0:18:45 Matt: He's Brooklyn President during this time. This is leading up to the campaign. We're going to getting into the campaign well.

0:18:49 Thomas: So then why does that brooklyn borough president have the power to even do any of that stuff that

0:18:54 Matt: He was, in Brooklyn, there are a number of different ethnic communities, including, as I understand it, I haven't looked up how many, but there is a Turkish community there. So he has liaisons, essentially, to these different ethnic community. And it would make sense that the Brooklyn Borough President would, at some point, go to Turkey and sort of build his connections with that community.

0:19:09 Thomas: Part maybe what about the fire why would he have authority over the fire department oh okay that's what I was asking

0:19:12 Matt: Oh, that's later. When he actually has the power. I am sorry. I thought you were asking about why he would go to Turkey.

0:19:15 Thomas: So oh oh so so I see so the the or the whatever side of it is, was before. And then they're like, now that you've ascended to this great heights, can you fudge a fire inspection for us? Okay, gotcha.

0:19:25 Matt: We've invested. Right. Yeah. Yeah, just classic quo after your quid.

0:19:33 Thomas: A classic quote.

0:19:34 Matt: So again, they're building this relationship. And this is kind of normal in these kinds of corruption cases where you get a foreign government. I swear they did this with Menendez and everybody else, where they start to give you these little things. They start to build the relationship. Obviously, Menendez has been in Congress for quite a while, but Adams wasn't really anybody at the time, except in New York politics. And I think they saw him as an up -and -comer.

0:19:51 Thomas: Right, new get rich quick scheme, Matt. I need to constantly position myself as though I look like I'm going to have power in like 10 years or five years. Oh man, I am an ambitious go -getter who is really connected and I'm just about to run for office somewhere. So foreign governments, if, you know, you want to invest, buy low, sell high.

0:20:14 Matt: Well, maybe if you could get like France and not Recep Erdoğan, one of the worst dictators in the world. Yeah, I think you could be a little choosier about which government is investing. I think I know

0:20:20 Thomas: No, I'm not into that. Yeah. Oh, I would be. Yeah. Canada. Maybe get some hockey related stuff. You know, give me all

0:20:28 Matt: Assume Canadian airlines are perfectly fine. I mean, Air France is awesome. I would really take that one first.

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0:23:37 Matt: So start you to get through the indictment, and they build the story about all these different ways they're beginning to invest in him. They're going to give him money. He's getting pretty excited about Turkish Airlines, and he's taking all these upgrades, free flights. At one point praised Turkish Airlines in public and talked about how great their vegan food was. He's pretty into it, having a good time on Turkish Airlines. Words. Number 13 on page nine. We're starting to get weird with it now.

0:23:58 Thomas: Because Turkish Airlines provided free travel benefits worth tens of thousands of dollars to Eric Adams, the defendant, he flew the Turkish airline even when doing so was otherwise inconvenient. For example, during the July and August 2017 trip, Adams' partner was surprised to learn that Adams was in Turkey when she had understood him to be flying from New York to France. Adams responded in a text message, transferring here, you know, first stop is always this temple.

0:24:25 Thomas: When Adams' father later inquired about playing a trip to Easter Island, and Chile, Adams repeatedly asked whether her the Turkish airlines could be used for...

0:24:35 Thomas: That's so stupid. Istanbul is always the... You know me. She loved that layover in Istanbul when flying

0:24:44 Matt: South America. It's so good.

0:24:47 Thomas: So Eric Adams repeatedly asks her whether the Turkish airline could be use for their flights, requiring her to call the Turkish Airline to confirm that they did not have routes between New York and Chile.

0:24:57 Matt: Who would have known?

0:24:58 Thomas: Yeah.

0:24:58 Matt: Good to check though. Good to check.

0:24:59 Thomas: Worth checking. Yeah. You know, you want to check like, do you take credit card here? Do you take American Express here? Yeah. We're checking.

0:25:04 Matt: Just a little way over in Istanbul on your way down to Chile, on your way to France. It is just very convenient. And I will say it, I have been to Istanbul but like three times I love it it's a great town but uh you don't have to go there every time you travel uh is getting suspicious just a little suspicious uh now we have a picture on page 10 of the bentley suite it's not a good picture it's unfortunately very grainy but it is a picture um will say that the bentway suite bedroom looks like the intercontinental or whatever

0:25:20 Thomas: I love a good picture in the indictment. Wow. This looks like I tried to print it for some school assignment in high school in 2002. Weird. Why can't they get better quality? Okay.

0:25:32 Matt: Yeah super grainy yeah I've basic gray scale would be nice this is not even gray grayscale. Yeah.

0:25:37 Thomas: I know. Yeah, this truly is bad. Wow.

0:25:40 Matt: So I'm not getting the opulence out of this picture, I have to say.

0:25:43 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. While the room might be opulent, the picture is not. Okay. And

0:25:47 Matt: The bathroom, I will say, that's like a Trump bathroom. It's very large. Looks It like its own room. But the bedroom doesn't look like anything special, I got to say, it's a pretty regular bedroom.

0:25:54 Thomas: I'm always like, you know, we've, we've been we're, known to do, I wouldn't say opulent but we've been known if it's a big trip, honeymoon, whatever it is, get a, get an expensive room and then it's hard. Cause like, well, you know you're also wanting to be around whatever city you're in and I don't really need more, you another room in my hotel. You don't do anything with it. It's kind of a waste is all.

0:26:14 Matt: Has two people. Yeah, even if you have kids, I feel like that's too much.

0:26:17 Thomas: If I have kids, I want 10 rooms. But if it's just us.

0:26:20 Matt: Understandably, I don't travel with kids, so I wouldn't know.

0:26:21 Thomas: Wait. Does he have kids? If so, I take everything back.

0:26:23 Matt: No, No. children. He has adult children. So they make the point here that booking the Bentley suite would have cost $7,000 and he paid less than $600. So yeah, perfectly normal, obviously.

0:26:27 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Point stands. Jeez. Why did he still have to pay? Okay. Got to pay something.

0:26:38 Matt: He's trying to make it look like this is a running theme in all of this. There's some pretty funny stuff coming up. A running theme that he has to try to look like he's paying something, but it's always a lot less than it should be. So of course, naturally, it goes on to say he doesn't disclose any of these trips he's supposed to be disclosing obviously since they're gifts from foreign nationals uh didn't put in his annual reports there's no disclosure whatsoever so again something that you any know elected official would know they're supposed to do this is no question um

0:27:01 Thomas: Picture him asking the cons. The concierge is like, hey, how do I get downtown from here? Oh, well, you could jump on a taxi or maybe this way. Do you think Turkish Airlines would run me downtown from here or let me call them first to see if they're like a little, I don't know, very small flight from here to downtown for everything.

0:27:10 Matt: Helicopter service maybe yeah uh the other part of this, and again, the building inspection thing, which we'll get to more detail in a moment, but the other Part that's really bad about this is that he was knowingly taking money through straw donors through directly raising money from Turkish officials and Turkish business people, which again, basic election financing stuff, you can't do this. But even worse, New York City has this matching program, where he was getting matching matching donations every time they donated. So he was actually taking taxpayer money knowingly with illegal campaign contributions. And he received about 10 million total in matching contributions. So I don't know how much of that breaks down to Turkish contributions, but he got quite a lot of Turkish contributions .So that's more than zero. Its own sort of set of crimes here that we're going to be going through. It's not as interesting because it's financial crimes, but Volworth noting that not only was he taking bribes to do stuff and getting all this free travel he was helping himself get elected on taxpayer money using illegal campaign donations so again classic corruption absolutely classic all so

0:28:20 Thomas: It speaks to the men's rate. Like it's one thing to be like, oh, I didn't know I was supposed to somehow Supreme Court justices can get away with that because they're so dumb. They don't know how to fill out a form or whatever, apparently. But this is a little more than that.

0:28:34 Matt: Now we get to number 20 this uh is where it gets again kind funnier page 15 if you want to uh yeah no it's good stuff

0:28:38 Thomas: It's pretty good so far. Yeah. Adams, the defendant, also sought to arrange for his campaign to receive unlawful contributions from Turkish nationals, which would be routed through U .S.-based straw donors. On June 22nd, 2018, same day as the the fundraising event just described, the Adams staffer and the promoter discussed by text message a possible trip by Adams to Turkey. The promoter stated in part, fundraising in Turkey is not legal, but I think I can raise money for your campaign off the record. We might be able to do crimes if crimes are what you would like to very consciously do, is I think what that, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Are you sure they're crimes? Yes, quite sure. Definitely. Absolutely. No doubt in my mind. These are crimes. You will be committing crimes if we do this. They are crimes is what they are. Okay.

0:29:18 Matt: Let's keep texting about it. But we can do it.

0:29:31 Thomas: Yeah. Do you want to proceed? The Adam Stafford inquired, how will Adams declare that money here? Promoter responded, he won't declare it or we'll make the donation through an American citizen in the US, a Turk. I'll give cash to him in Turkey or I'll send it to an American. He will make a donation to the Adam Stafford replied. I think he wouldn't get involved in such games.

0:29:56 Thomas: And then Thomas added, oh, no, I just talked to him. Actually, he's totally down for such game. I don't know why I thought he wouldn'T be down for corruption.

0:30:01 Matt: That's what happened. That's What Happened.

0:30:03 Thomas: Oh, no. Did I guess it? You got to be kidding me. The staffers like my boss would never, ever do such vile, corrupt thing. Oh, I talked to. No, he'S down. He's, uh, I was wrong about that. I don't know. Very weird. They might cause a big stink later on, but I'll ask anyways.

0:30:03 Matt: You guessed it. In to say the big stink being federal charges, actually.

0:30:24 Thomas: Yeah. I would describe that as a big thing is like, oh, our party got messed up. Like, Like, you know, the invitations are printed wrong. I don't know. Not really, you know, jail. Yeah.

0:30:33 Matt: Prison. Yeah.

0:30:35 Thomas: It's a big fuss, you know, it makes me think. Adam Stafford then asked, how much do you think would come from you? Promoter responded, max 100K. The Adam Stafford wrote, 100K? Do you have a chance to transfer that here? We can't do it while Eric is in Turkey. To which the promoter replied, let's think.

0:30:51 Thomas: Let's premeditate. After this conversation, the asked Adams whether the Adams staffer should pursue the unlawful foreign contributions offered by the promoter, and contrary to the, oh, no way. God, it was exactly what I said. Contrary to the Adams Staffer's expectations, Adams directed that the Adams Staffers pursue the promoter's illegal scheme.

0:31:13 Matt: As you can see, the Biden administration cooked this up because of his objections about migrants yeah

0:31:19 Thomas: God, that poor staffer. Well, egg on my face. We are in for the crimes. I, I thought I knew him. I guess I was trying to get better at my job. I don't know. I didn't know.

0:31:28 Matt: Let's uh here's our bank details yep yep yep so yeah that that was uh apparently the staffer's name was abasova and she has already flipped uh she was already in for you know yeah

0:31:35 Thomas: That's so good. God, I hope so. Yeah. Cause I do feel for some of these people that are in very not powerful positions who are like, uh, okay. I mean, that's pretty bad, but like, I don't know.

0:31:49 Matt: He's throwing them under the bus already he is already saying that a lot of this is done without his knowledge and that they're lying about him wanting to do it yeah naturally

0:31:55 Thomas: Yeah, no, no. I'm not talking about, look, that's definitely not true. I, after saying like, I have sympathy for being in, you know, an underling of a corrupt guy. And maybe you're like, oh, I got, I'm going to lose my job. I got kids to feed or whatever. But like, I don't know, this is pretty for That staffer also knew all this, read all those messages. Oh,

0:32:13 Matt: And was arranging it yeah for sure um we got more about upgrades etc. etc. but we've got some more interesting travel stuff uh have like an airline manager at Turkish Airlines who's responsible for Eric Adams who's just like his personal liaison to Turkish Airlines uh we've gotten more hotel photos on number 17 uh of thousands more dollars worth of stuff and upgrades

0:32:32 Thomas: Still from 1997 era of printing, but yeah. Okay. Or someone did a really time consuming like pencil sketch of it. Like one or the other actually, if

0:32:35 Matt: Yeah just dot matrix it's beautiful actually if you put it that way it does look like art yeah

0:32:43 Thomas: Exactly. Like someone really took the time or it's just the worst printer you've ever seen in your life that

0:32:47 Matt: St. Regis Cosmopolitan Suite bedroom on number 18, page 18, looks to me like a Marriott, but I don't know. Maybe I don't stay in fancy hotels.

0:32:55 Thomas: Would be really funny if the turkish people were doing that oh no this is one of our best yeah six is the biggest fanciest hotel you know how

0:33:04 Matt: Again, he goes to Turkey, he's getting free stuff while he's there. He's soliciting more campaign contributions from Turkish business people. It goes on. We've Then got these straw contributions from a New York construction company on page 19. and He's this is, of course, classic New York craft. You've got to get your construction companies. This is what made Trump, obviously, was working with the mob and construction companies, is how it works. You can't be the mayor of New York without having a good in with the construction companies and the unions and real estate, of coarse. Construction companies and fundraisers, more strong contributions. What was the next thing I want to talk

0:33:33 Thomas: Much straw does a campaign use I didn't really know we're losing we need more well I got these straw contributions so you guys okay I

0:33:35 Matt: A lot, yeah. Until it catches fire, yeah? Also appreciate the headings in these kinds of indictments on page 27. You can see this really summarizes it. But in 2021, Adams accepts bribes from the Turkish official and intervenes on the Turkish official's behalf with the fire prevention chief. So, you know, this is going to get good. Right, this, okay, I know we're doing a lot of reading here, but I really feel like we have to go beyond the headlines and show people what is actually in this indictment, because it's just very funny. There's just a lot stuff in here that I think is very funny, so page 27, they start to describe how he's working with the airline manager, who's basically like his personal liaison to Turkish Airlines. Airlines let's look at number a on 28 on let's just we can do the dialogue actually it's pretty fun on jun 22nd 2021 adams through the adams staffer requested the airline manager book s to istanbul for adams in order to conceal the favorable treatment the adam staffer requested the airplane manager charge adams what would appear to be a quote-unquote real price I will play the part of the staffer adam staffer how much does he owe please let them call me and I will make the payment.

0:34:40 Thomas: Is very expensive because it is last minute. I'm working on a discount. Am going to charge $50. Would work, wouldn't it?

0:34:47 Matt: No, dear. $50? What? Quote a proper price.

0:34:50 Thomas: Much should I charge?

0:34:52 Matt: Smiley face. You got to read the smiley face.

0:34:55 Thomas: I missed this. Sorry. My brain was so not expecting a smiley face there. Sorry, I just wouldn't do it. Literally, my brain was like, that's probably a fly that got squished. On it's not paper it's on your computer screen a smiley face how much should I charge smiley face you're right sorry yeah

0:35:13 Matt: You know that feature on Priceline where you name your own price and then it's like smileyface, right? Yeah, it's that, but you know, corruption.

0:35:17 Thomas: Name your price corruption tool yeah

0:35:21 Matt: His every step is being watched right right now. $1,000 or so. Let it be somewhat real. We don't want them to say he is flying for free. At the moment, the media's attention is on Eric. So again, this is just like clown show stuff. Let's negotiate corruption by text, right? Back and forth. $50 was their opening gambit. It's $50 for luxury business class travel internationally. Course, the response is quite a proper price. $1,000 is a great deal, because this would have been a $15,000 ticket, as they pointed out. It upgraded to business class on the open market.

0:35:55 Thomas: The idea that they're going to really scrutinize the price number but not you know the text where you talk about the crimes okay

0:36:02 Matt: Yeah, right. There's another fun dialogue on the next page. At Adam's direction, the Adam staffer also coordinated luxury lodging for Adam's and Adam's partner, which would be secretly provided at no cost to Adam's, as the Adam's staffer and the airline manager discussed. I'll play the part of the staffer once again. He is also asking where else they can go in Turkey. Do you have have a recommendation. It's too expensive.

0:36:21 Thomas: Seasons why does he care he's not going to pay his name will not be on anything thing either.

0:36:27 Matt: Super.

0:36:30 Thomas: You drive a hard bargain. I guess I'll, what?

0:36:32 Matt: Sure. All right. Let's keep his name off it and we'll pay. Yeah. This again, there's just classic stringer bell rule stuff, right? You're just criminal conspiracies all over the place in writing.

0:36:35 Thomas: Seasons it is. It's so petty. Again, if I, my, my price is just higher. I'm not saying it's infinitely high. I mean, I could be bought. I am sure. It is not going to be for miscellaneous Turkey related travel. I do not understand why that would be your price. That is a weird thing to do, but

0:36:58 Matt: You haven't been to Turkey, have you?

0:37:00 Thomas: No.

0:37:00 Matt: Pretty nice, but it's not that nice. I'm not risking federal prison for it, but

0:37:02 Thomas: How nice could I know nice places I have been to? I wouldn't do it for that. So maybe I've not been to the nicest places. I don't know.

0:37:11 Matt: Somebody wanted to give me a trip to Turkey I would absolutely take it, but not at this cost, not at federal prison cost. It keeps going more and more. Adams personally is responding and talking about how great this whole thing is. On page 30, we have this thing about how the Turkish official provided the Adams fundraiser with a fake bill for the hotel stay. Again, more mens rea, just very clear. To create the appearance, the Adams fundraiser had paid for the hostel, when in fact, as Adams knew, she had not. Get the idea. Keeps keeps going. Here. This is all while he's running, by the way. This was all during the campaign.

0:37:38 Thomas: Still. Oh OK.

0:37:40 Matt: We're getting into the consulate.

0:37:41 Thomas: We've got a horrible picture. OK.

0:37:43 Matt: This is the Turkish house on page 32, and this is a 36-story building at Yuen Plaza. 36-story building. This They were planning to open in September 2021, and they're looking for clearance, basically, at this point. To be clear about the timing on this, he was, at this moment, the presumed mayor of New York. He had won the the primary. He's not yet the actual mayor. He hasn't taken office. But he's beginning to act like the mayor because at this point, he's won the Democratic primary. That means he's going to be the mayor New York. He's still Brooklyn borough president, but he's got a lot of power in that position. Brooklyn's a big borough, obviously. So now we're talking about finishing up this construction of the Turkish consulate. And this is still in the fall of 2021. He is going to be sworn in in the beginning of 2022. the Turkish president is is very concerned about opening the building while he's visiting for the UN General Assembly meeting. So they're really, really concerned about the scheduling on this. And they're planning to open September 20th, 2021, but as of the end of August, they still hadn't gotten the certification they needed to have this thing finished. Issues a letter of defect

0:38:49 Matt: Saying, no.

0:38:48 Thomas: For some reason, I can't try just not building it bad. I don't know why that's not an option, but yeah.

0:38:54 Matt: And we all know bureaucracy in cities and how much work it can be to get these things signed off on it you know but

0:38:57 Thomas: Well, OK, but that's what I thought. It's not as though he's like, hey, grease the wheels on this. Put my packet at the top of the thing he's like no you need to find the false findings of this report or else you lose your job that seems like a very different thing to me I

0:39:10 Matt: It is bad yeah there's letters of defect that have gone out uh issues I think there was somewhere in here it says up to 60 yeah

0:39:18 Thomas: Hope to never receive a letter of defect sounds horrible big

0:39:23 Matt: There's there's a letter here on page 35 there's an email that uh they're talking about a letter that they received and talking about these major issues including central station and fan shutdowns should be an automatic violation order again this is all pretty technical but But FDNY really does not want to clear this thing. And he just keeps pushing and pushing and pushing. And it's pretty obvious what he's doing.

0:39:41 Thomas: Putting out fires again with all all they're interested in is not having fires come on who's the corrupt

0:39:44 Matt: That's right. Yeah. I was is a very important detail. I don't want to skip this. Of page 33, in a phone call to the Adams staffer, the Turkish official stated that because Turkey had supported Adams, it was is now, quote unquote, his turn to support Turkey. The Adams staffer relayed this message to Adams, and Adams responded, I know. Yep.

0:40:08 Thomas: Better than I thought I thought it was gonna be oh what oh I thought they were just giving me stuff that sucks yeah

0:40:13 Matt: Thought they just liked me. Yeah.

0:40:14 Thomas: Weird no he's like yep I I know I have mens rea

0:40:20 Matt: Yes, I'm definitely going to be committing some crimes now on behalf of Turkey, to be clear. 36, number P here, letter P if you want to read that one.

0:40:23 Thomas: My rea mens uh 2:17 p.m. on September 10th, 2021, the FDNY commissioner wrote Adams, Everything should be good to go Monday morning. Minutes later, Adams messaged the Turkish official from the commissioner, Letter being draft now. Everything should go to go morning. Morning. Turkish official responded, You are great, Eric. We are so happy to hear that with prayer hands emojis. You are a true friend of turkey abs replied yes even more a true friend of yours you are my brother I am here spelled it correctly to help at 2:30 p.m. the turkish official confirmed oh boy you are such a friend prayer hands emoji at 2:31 p.m. the fire prevention sent uh conditional letter of no No objection to the private alarm engineer.

0:41:19 Matt: So first of I think there should be a separate charge for that here. I'm very concerned by that. That is crime.

0:41:24 Thomas: It should at least be like, you know, where it's like the, what do you do in sentencing where it'S like aggravating factors or whatever? Yeah.

0:41:29 Thomas: It should least be that the sensing guidelines, how many misspellings, I

0:41:32 Matt: That's right. That's right yeah that's that's a homophone that's I don't know that doesn't seem like a that seems like a problem. I will point out the Turkish official here is almost certainly the actual consul of Turkey. So that's the guy who's actually gonna be spending what well that the guy is gonna be in the consulate like the guy here runs the consul it is the one who's rushing this through so he's not that concerned fire prevention safety either um the guy who's actually going to be in it

0:41:43 Thomas: Don't know what that means exactly. Oh, oh, huh. Yeah. I mean, schedules are important, but are they that important? Like the timing with the, whatever it's not worth dying in a fire for, but yeah.

0:41:59 Matt: Erdogan must have really wanted to open this thing yeah there's more about the airline manager and lots more ticket stuff it just there's a lot of ticket stuff in there and class to ghana for some reason uh of course he'll lay over in istanbul naturally gotta do that you can't fly to ghanna without stopping it's just it's such a classic corruption line too the

0:42:11 Thomas: First up is so good. The idea that you could possibly play dumb now with this, like you're so every single text is like I am doing turkey corruption stuff. Turkey corruption stuff is what I'm doing.

0:42:32 Matt: Yeah we got more thanks more uh and forth about you know was iraq satisfied like actually checking in to make sure that he's happy with everything that they're doing a good job of bribing him uh

0:42:42 Thomas: If you mind you staying on after this Bribery for a brief survey?

0:42:45 Matt: Right.

0:42:47 Thomas: A scale of one to ten. How much How much Would you recommend our bribery to your friends and other mayors?

0:42:53 Matt: Here's another fun little quote. The guy who's been dealing with him, airline the manager who's assigned to him, put that guy as one of the top guys he should put on his transition committee, his mayoral transition committee. The guy did his personal airline stuff. Yeah, just a little detail there. There. So then they've got a chart on page 41 in which the prosecutors add up. At least some of this travel stuff, the different upgrades and things that weren't disclosed, total value. As I said, there's much more stuff. It comes out to something like $123,000.

0:43:21 Thomas: Enough, man. Not enough.

0:43:22 Matt: Enough, not at all, not for this. Page 42, it is titled, Adams continues his corrupt relationships after becoming mayor.

0:43:31 Matt: Very important to prove, of course, that he continues to become the current mayor.

0:43:32 Thomas: How are they going to prove it? There's like a text. I would like to continue our corrupt relationship as I am now mayor.

0:43:38 Matt: Yes. Congratulations on becoming mayor, would you like to continue your current relationship?

0:43:41 Thomas: Yeah, press OK to continue.

0:43:45 Matt: Terms of service, yeah. So it keeps going. I mean, it's just, we're piling on at this point, but you really can't say enough. And again, I just wanted to put all this out there because he's going to continue doing this for months and months. He's going refuse to step down, I think, although the pressure is going to start to mount.

0:43:57 Thomas: Now you're predicting now. Oh, OK. Yeah, you're not

0:43:59 Matt: Yeah, that's how it's looking right now. And I just think it's worth getting out there that, like, this is super corrupt.

0:43:59 Thomas: Saying like in the indictment. Yeah, I know for sure. In In for a Turkish denomination of currency that I don't know. In for a double of that or something. I don' t know. What do they use? Infor lira? Infor two liras. I d 'on' t kno.

0:44:16 Matt: That's right. And for whatever 100 Lyra are. Yeah. Yeah. To the end of the facts pretty soon here. But I just really wanted to make this very clear. Checking in to make sure that they're going to collect the $25,000. He just will not appear at a fundraiser unless they're gonna get 25,000 is there all kinds of other stuff going on here and then of course you got 46 this is always what's going to happen in a situation like this Adams and his co -conspirators attempt to conceal their criminal conduct and you can imagine how expert this cover-up was was covered up he it didn't seem to to occur to him that maybe they could just get his phones all right so uh is where we get I don't want to spoil this just read number read d on page 48 just enjoy no

0:44:48 Thomas: As how you are reading about it, it did not go well. Wow. Sure. November 6, 2023, FBI agents executed a search warrant for the electronic devices used by Eric Adams, the defendant. Although Adams was carrying several electronic devices, including two cell phones, he was not carrying his personal cell phone, which is the device he used to communicate about the conduct described in this indictment. When Adams produced his personal phone the next day in response to a subpoena, It was locked such that the device required a password to open. I really think that's good. Oh, yeah, sure. Here you go. I thought they were going to say it was like a totally unrelated, different like cell phone or something.

0:45:38 Matt: This is so good hours

0:45:38 Thomas: OK, OK. Adams claimed that after he learned about the investigation into his conduct, he changed the password on November 5th, increased the complexity of his password from four digits to six. That ought to do it. Adams had done this, he claimed, to prevent members of his staff from inadvertently or intentionally deleting the contents of his cell phone because, according to Adams, he wished to preserve the contents, oh yeah, sure, of his phone due investigation. But Adams further claimed he had forgotten the password he had just set and thus was unable to provide the FBI with a password to unlock the phone. Yeah, no, that's awesome.

0:46:14 Matt: Before he changed the password and then forgot it and

0:46:17 Thomas: I was trying to comply so hard that I could try to comply too hard.

0:46:20 Matt: I want anybody else to read this stuff right or delete it I want you guys to have it that's right And then

0:46:23 Thomas: Now I cannot comply. But it's only because I really tried to comply super way too hard is the thing. Yeah.

0:46:29 Matt: And the Federal Bureau of Investigation, of course, is going to have no other way to get into your cell phone when you don't remember your password. So yeah, that didn't work.

0:46:37 Thomas: I mean, if it was Apple, did they end up ever not having. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how that works, actually. I wouldn't be surprised if they couldn't. But I think they should just make you do it like eventually. Right. Yeah, they're like, I will never give it. And they're like okay well then you're gonna be in jail probably all right here it is but

0:46:47 Matt: Did eventually unlock it one way or another. But this is, again, clown show cover-up stuff. Of um yeah so and then we're getting to the actual overt acts which again I think they all um you see them all laid out well this is when so basically those are all the statements of facts and now in 51 we're going to start to lay out page 51 the actual over it acts that that out the conspiracy because we're talking about conspiracy now to commit wire fraud that's the first charge and so you see they're all laid in one place uh a through h on page 51 one actually it's excuse me it's a through w to go down a little further that's a lot of overt acts

0:47:06 Thomas: We haven't gotten to overt acts yet yeah yeah adam's overheard that oh sweet it's only it oh no okay it's 93 w

0:47:32 Matt: Two more pages yeah uh then we got wire fraud on the next page and the overt acts there um straightforward about uh scheme to obtain money and property by means of false and fraudulent pretenses and contribution by foreign national obviously he knowingly took money from foreign nationals, and then solicitation of contributions from foreign nationals as we've seen in those texts. And then finally, of course, bribery itself. So just straight up, they say on page 55 here, count five, that he accepted the free and heavily discounted luxury travel in exchange for intending to be influenced in connection with regulation of the Turkish house. Although a little strange, isn't it? That phrasing, because he didn't know exactly what they were going to be asking from him, but maybe he did. I don't know.

0:48:11 Thomas: It's the kind of thing you would think would be hard to prove except that I've seen some of the texts already and it seems like yes I'm your best friend and yes I appreciate the bribery you're you're bribing me with yeah I know just

0:48:19 Matt: That's it. Yeah. And I know. Just the straight up like, yeah, of course I owe you. Let's do it. That is the indictment. And this is going to go forward to trial sometime next year. And he claims at the moment that he's going to remain the mayor of New York during this time. He claims that he is going be producing information that's somehow going to exonerate him from these charges. I'm not sure what that's going to be.

0:48:39 Thomas: As soon as I remember the password of my other my third phone oh

0:48:43 Matt: We'll get those completely exonerating emails right out to you. Interesting twist here, I was looking into this, the charter of the city of New York actually allows the governor of New York to remove the mayor through removal proceedings. Kathy So Hochul, the mayor, is looking at potentially removing him if he doesn't step down, because he is making a lot of noise about not stepping down. If he were to step down he would actually be replaced by...

0:49:05 Thomas: Turkish sounding name here by flight attendant uh oh

0:49:09 Matt: Unfortunately, no. Yeah, there's kind of an unusual thing. The president of the city council is the office of the New York City Public Advocate. That's a citywide position. And that actually is the first in line to succeed the mayor. And the incumbent right now is Jumaane Williams. And That would be the person who would take over. He's fairly well known as a a radical anti -police activist, I believe. So, yeah, maybe not the worst thing.

0:49:30 Thomas: Sweet well thanks eric adams first you Think it'd Be a tough uh decision for the governor it seems like nobody likes this guy and it's obviously the right thing to do yeah

0:49:41 Matt: And he's definitely just going to be limping this along until he's finally convicted. It doesn't do anybody any good, and I think that it would be good to replace him as quickly as possible. But, of course, there's just a political mess, and Adams has put a lot of his friends in different positions, and some of them are already now facing their own investigations for related things. You know, the city is somewhat under his control in that way, as I understand it. I'm not a New York guy, but this is my understanding of the way things are going down. At the same time, Williams is a democratic socialist and much further left than a lot of people in New York, so that might be complicated, too. Actually ran against Kathy Hochul for something or other. He was Senate governor at one point. Not going to predict the political outcomes of all of this, but I can just tell you about the legal stuff. And to me, it looks like reading this that we have a pretty clear -cut case of public corruption, wirefired bribery, and accepting contributions from foreign nationals. And this isn't even like the Dave Rubin stuff where you can make some kind of claim that you're going through somebody and you're not even sure where it's coming from. He's literally talking about how much he loves turkey and he's talking

0:50:36 Matt: To turkish people like this is pretty cut and dry yeah a weird enough character that I'd like to see some more out of him but I don't think he should be running the city of new york

0:50:36 Thomas: That's that's your problem right there you That was true before this, but yes, is, this the kind of thing where we should expect anymore? Or is this a kind of thing? We're like, this is it. Like they've, pieced they've it all altogether in this very, I was going to say long indictment. I guess I don'T know the average length of an indictment, But this very comprehensive indictment. Do you think there's more here or is this it?

0:50:46 Matt: Was definitely true before this uh just a few hours ago uh before recording this uh and lewis martin who one of his top aides just had her cell cell phone sees that she came back from Japan. There have been, you know, the NYPD commissioner had his stuff taken, as he mentioned in that statement.

0:51:12 Thomas: Adams gets on another video. OK, I think there could be more. I haven't been indicted yet for the second time, but if they are, then I'm not guilty. Yeah,

0:51:25 Matt: Apparently Joe Biden hasn't spoken with him in at least two years because they knew where the wind was blowing. This is an independent investigation, obviously not directed by Biden, but, Eric you Adams has been pretty toxic for a while. Is all because he spoke out against Joe Biden's immigration policies. And naturally, that's the only conclusion I can draw after reading this.

0:51:38 Thomas: And the only way Biden could deal with that is baiting him with sweet, sweet Turkish Airlines flights, tricking him into totally confessing all these crimes via text.

0:51:45 Matt: And overpriced hotel rooms. Yeah.

0:51:51 Thomas: Happened before he was. Yeah, OK, this is stupid. But you

0:51:57 Matt: Who knows? There could be a lot more coming. It seems if he's this stupid with the corruption we know about, there could be any number of other stupid corruption items to come. But I think this was worth getting into because this is the most important prosecution of somebody not named Donald Trump, I think, in quite a while. A really big deal.

0:52:11 Thomas: Know that's funny because on one hand just the way this guy talks and is it's like yeah no he's probably gonna go down corrupt for corrupt but you're right it is pretty crazy like it is pretty freaking insane like that what I'm saying is just on an eric addams curve it seems like yeah no this is very expected but grading on a mayor of new New York curve it's like holy shit so

0:52:31 Matt: And It's shocking. Yeah. Yeah, it's very true. I went through this indictment pretty carefully for what it's worth. And I don't see how, if they can prove obviously the things that they're saying, and obviously they have the aides, they have, the people have flipped on them. They have all these devices that they've taken. They had another raid in his house today where they went to get the rest of his devices. He was just, it rained this morning. We're recording on Friday, friday the 28th just to be clear

0:52:53 Thomas: I changed the locks on my house because I want to make sure none of my staffers came and took any evidence and now I can't find the new keys oh well come back later yeah

0:52:56 Matt: Good and I forgot where I don't know where I put him totally forgot yeah yeah that's uh that's the M.O. yeah he's indicted he's arraigned this morning uh and he gave another big press conference about how innocent he is and how this is all persecution suggesting that there's some racism involved as well but you know the facts are the facts here I don'T see how he's going to get out of this and it does seem like turkish he government cultivated a relationship with him and then tried to make the most of that relationship. Know what else to say about this. It is pretty classic corruption and wire fraud.

0:53:27 Thomas: You it might be my hobby horse uh with the with the where there's woke stuff but I love how you can't just cry racism and get out of everything like the right the right thinks you can like he says racism and then we actually make him president after that like wow Wow. Racism. But like in reality, I think, you know, most of the left is pretty sensible, if not all of the Left in this case. And like, no, don't think that's racism, bud. Think you're just lying.

0:53:51 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, no, that's, you know, whatever you want to try to do to get out of it, I guess you don't have a lot of other defenses right now.

0:53:55 Thomas: Worth a try. Hey, is it a high tech lynching as Clarence Thomas famously said? Might as well go to that one, too, while you're at it. Play the greatest hits.

0:54:03 Matt: Actually, I don' t know, this might be a where there's woke tie -in. He wrote a book called Don't Let It Happen in 2009, which I was really enjoying earlier today. I couldn't really find a way to tie it in to this, but it's a book basically about how to figure out if your kids are up to stuff and it's really weird

0:54:17 Thomas: My God. Yeah, they did some of that or no, they played something of a clip that was along those lines on that podcast. It was the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life.

0:54:25 Matt: It's amazing I mean it's like are they telling you that they're in a gang they're probably in a game

0:54:29 Thomas: Okay I actually need to find that because that's the funniest thing in the world well

0:54:33 Matt: Lot of it is on Google Books I'm looking at it here the whole thing isn't on there but I

0:54:36 Thomas: Though well I'm gonna find this video they referenced it was like eric adams as

0:54:40 Matt: Even just the cover of Don't Let It Happen is amazing should just send it to you

0:54:44 Clip: I'm New York State Senator Eric Adams, and for 22 years, I wore a bulletproof vest and stood on the street corners and protected children and families in the city of New York. I'm asking you to join me in this crusade of removing illegal handguns off how to search a room inside their home. It's imperative that you should know what's inside your household. No

0:54:47 Thomas: Know me from 30 rock and for okay he like goes into a house hold on a second okay I'm gonna skip ahead okay I so distracted by the amazing quality of whatever this music is relative to what is happening here I'm like this is who wrote who scored this insane video. It's Eric Adams teaches, and he was a state senator, teaches parents how to properly spy on their children. This is so good. I can't take credit. Again, this was that other podcast that did this, but this is what, if you haven't heard this, you need to hear this.

0:55:33 Clip: Can state that you can't search a room in your own home. You write the Constitution. There are no First Amendment rights inside your household. It is your obligation and responsibility

0:55:41 Thomas: That's not the one that is, that's not the right amendment, Matt, is it? The first amendment the one the search and seizures? I didn't think it was.

0:55:48 Matt: Not in the United States maybe in Turkey could just be confused I

0:55:53 Thomas: Someone check their constitution

0:55:55 Clip: Only to protect the child that may be using an illegal drug or carrying an illegal gun, but you also have to protect members of the household, their younger brothers and their younger sisters, and the other elder members of the household.

0:56:02 Matt: Mean

0:55:55 Thomas: Dude this music is killing me it's really interesting I I genuinely don't know was this music added later as to like yes this is such a weird video that no I think this says 13 years ago this was the original scoring of this jesus what

0:56:19 Clip: By periodically sending a message to your home that there are no rooms off limits, you don't believe in locked doors, your house is open to inspection by your house and the members of your house. The message is you expect your children to do what's right, but you always have to inspect what you expect. And that's the key to providing some preventive safety. So if you come to a room like this, you can start out, I always recommend to start out in a periodic fashion so you'll be used to going through the room to look at the various items in the room. You can look in a jewelry box, a jewelry of this nature, maybe a simple jewelry box but if you look through it closely, you don't know what your child may be hiding. For instance, a gun could be hidden, a small caliber weapon could be hid inside a jewelry box.

0:56:44 Thomas: Here we go all right everyone one I pulled out a gun from it

0:57:06 Clip: Box. Look at the various colognes and perfumes and photos and pictures. You should always when your child brings in his popular knapsack with many different locations, look through it to see what exactly is your child carrying in addition to a book. Something as simple as a crack pipe, a used crack pipe. Could he have found it on the street? That's quite possible. But this is a discussion piece where you should start speaking with him to find

0:57:06 Thomas: What something as simple as a crack pipe is a discussion piece I yeah when I find a something as simply as a crag pipe in my kids backpack I'm usually like hey this is the start of a discussion this is a

0:57:45 Matt: Gonna talk about it for

0:57:46 Thomas: It's a real icebreaker that one you know it really just gets the conversation flowing because

0:57:51 Matt: We all love 30 rock but I don't know why we just listened to an extended 30 rock bit that was yeah

0:57:54 Thomas: Love 30 rock I think you answered your own question in there man yeah

0:57:57 Matt: No pretty much pretty much I just kept waiting for him to finish one of those sentences with liz lemon you know or whatever like just like it's amazing I just sent you so you can see the cover because this is actually related I just send you the the book on google books and you just have to just take a look at this cover and New York child's lunchbox as portrayed on the cover of Don't Let It Happen, you know, front

0:58:03 Thomas: So good uh yeah that's this it's the same kind of theme uh let it happen it has a lunchbox with okay let's start with the healthier items uh you've got a banana sure those aren't actually as healthy as you think but it's not terrible you got what looks to be maybe a probably like a sandwich sandwich of some kind uh the pretzel you got those pretzel crisps that are very addictive those are as maybe as dangerous in the long run as the gun that is also in the lunchbox oh

0:58:31 Matt: Pretzels. There's pretzels, you know, and addictive. And approximately $5 ,000 worth of either cocaine or heroin is also in the lunchbox.

0:58:51 Thomas: I thought that was a sandwich is that what that's you

0:58:53 Matt: Those have to be drugs. That's a bag of drugs well

0:58:54 Thomas: Can't just be eating pretzels and a banana that doesn't make unless you're eating the gun too I think that's got to be a would I say it's a sandwich but I think you're actually right it's gotta be drugs

0:59:03 Matt: If that's all you're having for lunch you gotta have some coke too to make sure you don't get hungry so it's very thoughtful of mom to keep throw that in there also

0:59:05 Thomas: I just I just picture the cafeteria what do you got for lunch well let's see you just hold this gun while you eat your banana

0:59:17 Matt: A little crazy about the photoshopping here is that imagine trying to close that run that lunchbox it can't be closed

0:59:19 Thomas: It's so bad I know I know it's it's also not even really a lunch box almost a pencil box really it's like the wrong kind of thing that

0:59:26 Matt: Well it's a drug and gun box when it comes down to it so you know and this book is just looking at the table of contents in this book it's like everything you could possibly be afraid of for your kids in one place this guy is must be living in terror I mean it's just like everything

0:59:30 Thomas: Is that is incredible that was incredible yeah I can't actually parent like that that's horrible

0:59:46 Matt: Sadly chapter 12 page 127 we can't find out what police abuse role playing is but I'm very curious about what that is I have to get the whole book at some point best

0:59:52 Thomas: Man you should search your child's rooms for uh tickets and turkish airlines because that's scary you should always make sure they have business class all

1:00:03 Matt: Vegan food um there you go there's eric adams uh

1:00:06 Thomas: That's insane matt wow I that was that was a journey that was, uh, I can't wait. Yeah.

1:00:10 Matt: So much more to eric addams too

1:00:12 Thomas: I We get a trail someday. It's a gavel gavel out of this. Cause that would be fun.

1:00:12 Matt: But yeah would be a lot of gavel gavel content for sure

1:00:18 Thomas: Thanks so much for the breakdown. Thanks so much, Eric Adams for that. Incredibly, uh, with the exception of the threatening the job and the potential fire risk, I hope they're going to do something about that fire risk. Other than that, very, um, for the most part, safe, hilariously stupid corruption that we could enjoy, you know, for most part.

1:00:35 Matt: Thought you'd like it good times

1:00:37 Thomas: Right. Thanks so much for listening. Support the show patreon.com/law. We'll see you on Wednesday.

1:00:41 Matt: Don't forget to fly through a standfall

1:00:43 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.

1:01:00 Matt: Is so much better at corruption, we're

1:01:02 Thomas: Transferring here, you know, first stop is always this temple.

1:01:06 Matt: Smiley face.

1:01:07 Thomas: Are in for the crimes. I, I thought I knew him. I guess I was trying to get better at my job. I