October 7, 2024 • 51 mins
Mia, Gare and James are joined by the Outspoken slate's Joey Patt to read the indictment of Eric Adams and discover how his cartoon bribery schemes fell apart.
Sources:
Next-in-Line for New York Mayor Got Contributions From Donor in Eric Adams Indictment
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media, Welcome, Dick It Happened Here a podcast where
we're bringing Shitty Mayor one Day back to celebrate an
incredibly special occasion, which is the unbelievably funny federal indictment
of what New York Mayor Eric Adams with me talk about.
This is Garrison Davis, is James Stout and and we
(00:24):
have a New York expert, our fellow trade unionist, Yeah,
Joey pat who works on what we Love and Afterlives.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Joey, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Hey, thank you for having me. Excited to be here.
I hope I can. I can provide some insight to
New York City and everything that's been happening lately.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
The Eric Adams news really is kind of the most
positive piece of duce that we've had the past month.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It's been a really bad it's keeping me going.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, I feel like I gotta say I found out
the news of the indictment. I was at like a
gay bar near me, like at a like queer Pool event,
and like everybody got the news at the same time,
and it.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Was one of the funniest.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Ways to learn that Eric Adams has been a yacht
was that was the like the most joy I've seen
from a from a group of New Yorkers in a while.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
What a beauty.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, okay, so I want to I want to open
the floor up to Eric Adams stories. But first I
need to complain about the fact that so I have
I have long as a proud Chicago Wan who has
now fled Chicago for Portland. I have long made fun
of New York for being a Tier two Chinese city
that thinks that it's the greatest city in the world.
And then I learned they didn't have trash cans, which
(01:41):
pushed this at like, this is not even like a
Tier five. This is a level of trash collection that
you see in like rural HOOBEI like, what the fuck Britain.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
The United Kingdom where we got rid of trash cans too?
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Oh my god, that's not true though, because luckily Eric
Adams didn't make the trash cans.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
It's just what is going on.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
The first American city to ever think of this idea.
I'm for context. I am also in a unique position
here because I'm from Chicago, and yeah, oftentimes get my
friends and family that still live in Chicago confused as
to why I live out here. I do love New York.
I I it is a great city to live in.
(02:24):
But these are the kind of moments we have where
I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I can't. I can't.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I honestly, And then.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Think about this.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Eric Adams stuff too.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
It's like the stuff he's so, there's gonna be a
second federal indictment with more people in it, but the
first one it's kind of brush league shit by Chicago standards.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Like like if you compare this.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
To like like Rob Lagoyevitch trying to sell off, like
trying to sell Obama's Senate seat, It's like, okay, yeah,
I've been saying New York wants.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
To be Chicago. They're starting a second city here too.
Oh no, No, the ads in the subway and every
time takes away a part of my soul. Like I'm like,
you cannot claim that that is us.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
It just means there's gonna be even more insufferable people.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
This this sucks. Yeah, a second second city has hit
the Towers. Another great Rag Adams moment. Eric Adams hit
the Towers.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
No no, but he had he had this great interview
where he was asked to summarize like, what.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Makes New York great in one word?
Speaker 4 (03:30):
And he gave the answer, h New York, which is
two words, and that explained it's because it's the only
city where you can wake up and have nine to
eleven happen and also open up a small business. One
of the one of the funniest Eric Adams moments I've
ever seen till until he was indicted, which is now
the new funniest Aracatams moment, which we should probably get
(03:53):
to because this is not a short indictment.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
Wait are we're doing all Eric adams favorite moments yet?
Because I have a fat we got run?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Mine?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah? Do you want to hit his with yous? Jerry?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Mine's definitely. I think the ongoing saga of just whether
or not he's a vegan and the fact that he
repeatedly claims he's a vegan and thinks that vegan.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I didn't know this.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah, he's a vegan. He talks a lot about how
he's a vegan and all the health benefits and how
it's he has a lot of weird like beliefs about
health and stuff that have come out over his you know,
mayor old run. But apparently he's not actually a vegan
because he's been seen like eating chicken on camera and
(04:35):
like that the weird video of his apartment when he
was running. That was the Brooklyn apartment that he may
or may not live in, Like there was like some
sort of meat product in the fridge or something. There's
been a whole thing about how like he maybe and
he's like admitted that he's like eaten meat sometimes, Like
he's like, oh, well, you know, I'll just have like
a little nibble, like it's it's it doesn't count. Chicken
is a vegan?
Speaker 4 (04:54):
What do you mean he identifies as a vegan vegan.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
He's like some kind of like like sixteenth century Catholic
you know where they have all these weird exceptions for
fish and like right right, that's.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
A repent and then whatever to confass and and then
he's getting he gets you get a card back.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
That's a good one. That's a good one. Yeah, Jewey's
Jewi's kind of mentioned mine.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
But the fact that he definitely is from New Jersey,
which I think is what allowed him to use a
trash can, Like he definitely does not live in New York.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
There's there's no way, like.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
My favorite also relates to him not living in New York,
which is when Kurb staked out his New York apartment
and he came back once parked illegally and then caused
a traffic jam by parking illegally so bad that he
couldn't put out of the parking. He wasn't in a
parking space. He was in someone's driveway. So then he
proceeded to drive along the sidewalk, and they like filmed
(05:51):
him doing this, and he confessed to doing it and
was like it was a terrible mistake, just an incredible
sequence of events.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
I mean, maybe that is like a New York mayor
who can't drive, Like, I guess that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Like yet refuses to use mass transit.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Oh God, that's true. That's true. He does hate public transportation.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
God, you can just send more cops in the subway.
That'll fix it, all right, Oh God, let's uh yeah,
let's let's let's get into this. Get start.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So okay, So the things here is being indicted for
are effectively okay. So he took a bunch of different
bribes in different ways. So he took I guess there's
two broad categories of bribes that he took, which is
the bribes that are campaign donations that he funneled through
(06:38):
straw donors, which is the thing where you like there's
like limits on how much money you could donate to someone, right,
So what you do is you find like ten people
and you give them all two thousand dollars so they
can still donate it even though it's the money from you.
This is unbelievably legal. And the second type is him
just accepting unbelievable amounts of like gifts and stuff from
(06:59):
a Turk shairliner. Now, the interesting thing about this is
that you would expect this is the thing that started
when he was a mayor, but like, no, he was,
so he was. He was the borough president of Brooklyn
for a bunch of years before he became mayor.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
And this is like as.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Burro president is when he really started doing all of
this random, weird corruption stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
He's been doing this for almost like ten years.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah, I kind of love this too, because the like
Brooklyn borough president, it's kind of a fake job, like
you don't really do anything. And I love the fact
that he still managed to find ways to be corrupt
and his like fake.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Job that he had.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
It's stunning, Oh, because I'm going to read starting with
the indictment a bit. By smuggling their contributions to Adams
through US based straw donors, Adams oversees contributors defeated federal
laws that served to prevent foreign influence on US elections.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Wealth.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
The individuals evaded laws designed to limit their power over
elected officials by restricting the amount of money one person
could donate to a candidate, and businesses circumvented New York
City's ban on corporate contributions by fundeling the donations the
multiple employees, frustrating a law that cc reduce corporate power
in politics. Adams increases fundraising by accepting these concealed illegal
donations at the cost of giving a secret patients undue
(08:16):
influence over him that the law tries to prevent. So
this is really funny because so there's three different illegal
like things that he's done, like three shildo owners. So
like there's like there's three kinds of campaign contributions you
can't do. It's like corporations one person there's like limits
and how men watch an individual person could donate and
you can't get you can't get donations from like people
(08:37):
not from the US, and he managed to both individually
and in the same scheme violate every single one of
these laws.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
It's it's shitty, widely incredible. I guess I would like
to learn more.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
I mean, at some point, and I'm sure we'll get
into it as how like explicit this whole like Turkish
funding really is like extremely.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
About it. Yeah, I'm sure we'll get to this.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
It's when they're like, hey, Eric, you're not going to
say anything about the Median genocide au that Tony didn't happen, bro,
don't mention the genocide.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Oh yeah, we'll get to that.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
So Eric Adams, the defendant, also saw and received other
improper benefits from some of the same co conspirators who
fundised shchra altonations to his campaign. In particular, a senior
official in the Turkish diplomatic establishments henceforth Turkish official who
facilitated many Chral donations to Adams, also arrange for Adams
and his companions to receive free or discounted travel on
(09:31):
Turkey's national airline quote the Turkish Airline, which is owned
a significant part by the Turkish governments, to destinations including France, China,
Sri Lanka, India, Hungary, and Turkey itself. The Turkish officials
and other Turkish nationals further arrange for Adams and his
companions to receive, among other things, free rooms at opulent hotels,
free meals of high end restaurants, and free luxurious entertainment
(09:52):
well in Turkey.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
So this is all very very explicit.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
He's got wanderlust, you know, supposed to be like a
travel blogger like Girley, like doing tiktoks and you know,
unfortunately he had to become mayor.
Speaker 5 (10:07):
So yeah, a bond of log forster.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Mayor starting to do the job he wants to.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, it's very tragic. Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
So actually the first thing Turkish influence thing that he did.
I actually, this is weirdly the one part of this
they don't have a problem with. One of the big
things he was trying to get was there's a giant
like uke Turkish consulate building that they opened kind of recently,
and a big part of this was getting permission to
open the Turkish consulate without a fire inspection, so that
air to one could visit for like the opening of
(10:37):
the consulate and look, okay, we already can't fly to
Turkey because of a public support for the Curtis Free movement.
So like, I'm just gonna say this, I am entirely
okay with this. I am I don't give a shit
if they don't do fire inspections.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
I'm okay with heir to one being in a non
fire safe building.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah yeah, like fuck him.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Like, if the guy who burned hundred and fifty people
alive and Cindy wants to fucking burn a death in
his own consulate, then let him. Like I Jennie widely
don't give a shit about this. She did threaten the
job of like the New York Fire Department's fire inspector,
which kind of sucks, but like, if everyone wants to
burn to death in his death trap, let him do that.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
This is one of the.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Text conversations that done. Was was uh, I don't know
if leaked is the right word, but yeah, like cause
it was.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
It was.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
They were like there was something they said to where
they were like, we've done a lot for you. Now
it's time for you to do something for the Republic
of Turkey. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, we'll get we'll get to that.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
This is yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so good town shit
I was like, all right. After Eric Adams, a defendant,
first travel to Turkey in twenty fifteen, the Turkish official
introduced Adams to Turkish Airlines general manager in New York
City area in twenty sixteen and twice in twenty seventeen. Again,
this is all before he US Mayor Adam solicited and
(11:56):
accepted free and heavily discounted luxury air travel from Turkish
Airline as part of Turkish officials' efforts to gain an
influence over Adams on three separate trips. Basically, like he's
getting first class tickets from all of these people. It's
so much money worth of stuff, like just like thousands
of dollars. The exact totals, like all of the gifts
he took from Turkish Airlines's like one hundred and it's
(12:17):
like one hundred and thirty one thousand something dollars.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, man, So like any time I read a paragraph
of this, just assume that in between like whatever paragraph
I'm reading and the stuff I didn't read before it,
he's taken another ten thousand dollars of free like first
class rides a Turkish airline.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
It is a blessing in disguise, I will say that
I will never see Eric Adams on a flight because
I cannot fly.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
It was Turkish Airlines. That's true.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
There's a very funny line about this, because the Turkish
airline provided free travel benefits were tens of thousands of
dollars to Eric Adams, the defendants. He flew the Turkish
airline even when doing so was otherwise inconvenience.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, this is fucking correct.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
For example, for example, the July in August twenty seventeen trip,
Adam's 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 quote,
transferring here you know first off is always in istanbul
spelled very wrong and lowercase is true. When adams partner
(13:23):
later inquired about planning a trip to the Eastern island Chile,
Adams repeatedly asked her whether Turkish airlines could be used
for these flights, requesting her to call Turkish Airlines to
confirm they did not have roots between New York and Chile.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Why would Tish airlines have a flight from New York?
Speaker 5 (13:43):
Oh my God, which spits part of the Greater Ottoman Empire.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
You know, I would take bribes from Air Canada, but
I'm also not running for mayor.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
So yeah, well you could run for Bira president. That's true.
That's true. I could. I could become.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
Elected the mayor of southful That is very doable. Every Similarly,
lots of the mayors of South Fulton have had very
odd kind of controversies. So what I'm saying is South
Fulton is basically Georgia's version of New York.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
New York is a South Fulton of America. Yeah. Have
you guys seen a video clip of him. Every city
he goes to, he says, like, New York's the city
of America. Yeah, crazy, It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Stambul of America.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
So this is all very funny. But this is all happening.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
All of the tens of thousands of dollars at this
point of money that he's taking from Turkey is all
happening at a period where Turkey is butchering Kurds across the
Middle East, like his first trip there. And this is
all again well before his mayor while he's like Brooklyn
Borough president is four months before the fire bomber of
that city that I talked about where they were again,
they burned one hundred and fifty civilians alive in fucking building.
(14:54):
If I'm remembering correctly, I'm pretty sure they killed. I'm
pretty sure they burned the city council alive. That's just
the stuff in Turkey, and like we have covered extensively
on this show, Turkey's like drone warfare program. There's the
whole thing of it. Has been long suspected that the
Turkish government was aiding ISIS during the period because they
were like using basically using them as a proxy to
(15:15):
fight like Kurtish Freedom Movement forces in Syria.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
I think you could definitely say that, like former ISIS
fighters are now fighting for the Turkish against the Kurds
in the Iraqi Curtis done.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, I've said that before.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
The Kurds will tell you that former I know David
Graebery at the Apologies you spent actually who who smuggled
a bunch of drone parts too, had a story about
how we soccing people like yeah, they would like they
would pick up ISIS fighters and they would look at
their possessions and they every single one of them as
Turkish passports. They all have like Turkish I did shit.
It's like, hm, I wonder where these people came from.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
Even like I'll just say that I have spoken to
some people who were part of the fight against ISIS
who discovered the blank Turkish passports when taking like ISIS
buildings and ISIS strongholds.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah, so there's I mean, just this is a period
of even by the standards of Turkey, like unbelievable Turkish violence.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
This is their their invasion of Syria.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And you know, this is the period in which Eric
Adams decides that he's going to become a nation to
the Turkish state. And so obviously, like he lies about
this to the governments because again you're not allowed to
do this. There's a bunch of very funny schemes that
he does. As Brooklyn Borough President, Adams employed a scheduler
henceforth known as the Adams Scheduler, who pointed it who
(16:35):
manages appointments, meetings, and other official events. Despite her status
as a New York City employee, the Adams Scheduler was
used by Adams to perform personal tasks for him, such
as collecting rent at a Brooklyn property he owned. Adams
also assigned the scheduler to pay various expenses for him,
after which Adams would reimburse the scheduler in cash. In
twenty seventeen, Adams sent a series of emails to the
(16:57):
scheduler directing the scheduler to pay for the free twenty
seventeen flights he and his companions had already taken on
the Turkish air Line, but the emails provided inconsistent explanations.
In some Adams suggested that the Adams schedulers should pay
using Adam's credit card, while on others, Adams claimed to
have left cash in an envelope for the Adams scheduler
(17:18):
to send to the Turkish air Line.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Ah, it's that's how you pay. That's how I pay
for all my fights. Cash. It an envido.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
This is how we tried to cover up for the
fact that he's not paying for these flights. And he'll
pay like six hundred dollars for a thread dollars ticket,
but he's like sending envelopes to his scheduler to hand
to the Turkish air Line.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
A man who was a call doing an absolutely terrible
job of covering his own ass.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
You know who else is taking bribes from the Turkish government.
We cannot It's not our products and services. It's it's
someone else's products and services. Ours are all fine. We
(18:04):
are back. So there's actually another paragraph of that part.
For example, on November twenty fifth, twenty seventeen, Adam sent
an email to the scheduler saying that with respects to
the July trip quote, I left you the money for
the International airline and did an envelope and your top
gest drawer please send it to them. So the funny
(18:24):
one about this, right, So he's supposed to have this
like cash dead drop to pay for the island tickets.
Then he just like never does it because the tickets
are free. So he just like stops covering his tracks.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, amazing, and doesn't use signal.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah it's really sounding okay. So what is Turkish government
getting from this in return for travel benefits the Turkish
official provided or range In about twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen,
Eric Adams, the defendant, granted a political request from the
Turkish official prior to Adam's twenty fifteen travel to Turkey,
which Adams knew and disclosed to the one of the
(18:58):
monitoring agencies have been funded by, among other entities, the
Turkish Consulate, the Turkish Airline in three separate municipalities in Turkey.
Adams maintained a relationship with a Turkish community center in Brooklyn.
In or about twenty sixteen, the Turkish official told Adams
that the community center was affiliated with a Turkish movement
that was hostile to Turkey's government, and that if Adams
wished to continue receiving support from the Turkish government, Adams
(19:21):
could no longer associate with the community center. Adam zach
wies Scott, I wonder who it was, See, Okay, so
I looked into this. No one that I've seen doing
reporting on this seems to know which center this was.
But but this has to be a Goulinist thing. Yeah,
So to people who didn't spend all of their childhoodmired
in the intpt of Turkish politics, Airedwan's the current rule
(19:44):
of Turkey, Gulam was like one of his old old allies.
But they had this giant falling out and a huge
part of what everyone was doing in the twenty tens
was like trying to purge all of the Gulanists from everywhere.
Like there was this whole scheme running I think through
Michael Flynn, where Turkey was trying to get Trump to
like the Gulan's like in like a compound and I
(20:06):
think Virginia or something, and Turkey was trying to get
Trump to like raid the compound and send them to Turkey,
which didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, that line's up with the coup. They are twenty
sixteen coup, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, So you know, it's always been unclear to me
exactly how much influence these people have. But the one
thing I will say is that so I had a
classmate in college who was in Turkey for a long time,
and their line about it was like, yeah, I don't know,
like how much of this sort of Gulist deep state
shit is true. But also there were like gulanest people
who you could go to who had like all the
answers to like state exams if you want to be
(20:41):
willing to get in bed, whether they would just give
him all the answers, So, like, you know, they weren't
not a part of this, And I'm pretty sure what
happened here was that Adams was like cutting off all
contact with these people because this this is part of
the goolan Ist split, I'm not one hundred percent sure
because there are multiple community centers in Brooklyn, in Brooklyn
like Turchimuni centers in Brooklyn, but I'm about eighty percent
sure that's what happens. So that's like one of the
(21:03):
first direct influence things. Okay, so he's doing the influence
peddling stuff, right, He's doing his partially through the airlines.
And then also he's just taking a bunch of legal
fundraising money.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
On July twenty second, twenty eighteen, the same day as
this fundraising event, the Adam staffer and the promoter discussed
by text message a possible trip by Adams the Turkey.
The promoter stated, in part, fundraising Turkey is not legal,
but I think I can raise money for your campaign
off the record. The Adam stafford inquired, how will Adams
declare that money? The promoter responded, he won't declare it
(21:37):
or will make the donation. Do an American citizen in
the US a Turk, I'll give cash to him in Turkey.
We'll I'll send it to an American. He will make
the donation to you. The Adam staffer replied, I think
he won't get involved in such games. They might cause
a stink later on, but I'll ask anyways. The Adam
Stafford then asked how much do you think would come
from you? The promoter responded max one hundred k. The
(21:58):
Adam Stafferd wrote, one hundred k. Do you have a
chance to transfer that here? We can't do it while
Eric is in Turkey, to which your promoter replied, let's think.
After the conversation, the Adam Stafferd asked Adams whether that
Adam Stafford should pursue the unlawful for contributions offered by
the promoter, and, contrary to the staffers expectations, Adams directed
(22:19):
the staffer to pursue the promoter's illegal skime.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
I feel like you should know who you're working for
well enough to be like, hey, this guy is offering
a completely illegal fundraising scheme that we know is illegal,
and I don't think my boss will take it.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
And then the boss turns around to me, he's.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
Like, yeah, fuck it, raised buddy, it might cause a
big stink later on.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
You don't say, yeah, that's wild. To be fair, it did.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Yeah, it's so explicit, and I do want to get
to some some of the other text messages sooner or later,
because it really just shows how like aware everyone involved
is of over like what's going on.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, they're doing crimes.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
It's literally just hey, what should I do with the
crime money?
Speaker 2 (22:59):
The illegal crime?
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Have we mentioned the legal.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
So partially this is being run through Turkish airlines, Partially
this is being run through a Turkish university, and partially
this is being run through just a bunch of businessmen,
some of whom are Turkish, some of them aren't. So
here's like the next thing I was gonna read. Although
Adams knew that Businessman one was a Turkish national who
could not lawfully contribute to US elections, Adams directed the
staffer to obtain the illegal contributions offered by Businessman one.
Following up on this directive, Adams wrote to the staffer
(23:26):
that business or one quote is ready to help. I
don't want his help to be wasted. So they are
just like unbelievably directly being like, yeah, we know this
guy can't do this, but we're just going to tell
him to send this money anyways.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, it's insane how slapstick they are about this.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, and like you know, they're kind of trying to
come from the tracks. I think this part of it
is one of the things that I think like was
one of the things that kind of went viral over this.
So Adams is trying to arrange another like fifty thousand
dollars contribution from a third Turkish businessman, and in the
middle of this, he's saying to the staffer, quote to
(24:06):
be on the safe side, please delete capital P, capital D.
Please delete all messages you send me, Adams responded, always do.
Now we don't for a fact that a bunch of
these messages we're simply not deleted, considering.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
That you just read them.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
I do also think it was worth noting that some
of these efforts certainly started to ramp up around his
mayoral campaign, because some of these Turkish officials thought that
if Adams becomes a more like prominent member in politics,
he ever like runs for president, if they can gain
influence over him from like pretty early on, that would
be really useful for the Turkish government. That is some
(24:45):
of like the reasoning behind this like decades long campaign
like puppet Eric Adams.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Maybe the Turkish government had seen Nate Silver's now infamous tweet.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
It will be the next Yeah, I mean it's all
nights any such case, any case.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, snate silver who got them to chase us around
with drones last last October.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
He keeps getting more businessman to donate tens of thousands
of dollars.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Oh yeah, it's so funny.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
It's like repeatedly, he just keeps getting more and more
and more.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
And the funniest part is that like by like guy
number four, he's doing this with he's like telling the
guy how to do straw donations where he's like, yeah, no,
you can't donate ten thousand dollars, but give two thousand
dollars to.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Each of your employees and they'll do it.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Yeah. He's doing like instructions for each of these guys,
and it's like at a certain point, like some of
the early airline stuff is yes, illegal and sketchy, but
like you know, it's it's just getting some nice plane tickets.
By like twenty twenty one, he's just teaching them how
to do like super illegal like campaign fraud.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Yeah, you've like committed so much, like you're just like
into deep, like you can't like.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
What's there to do? Yeah, you know who else is
in too deep?
Speaker 1 (25:57):
It's the products and services who control the podcasts podcast
support that one. Yeah wow, wows not so much to
say by the Reagan coin people.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
They have a very little editorial control.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Are supposed to delete those tags.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
There are so many funny ones. He also he also
is taking.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Money from this Lusbek construction guy where he takes a
bunch of money that like shows up at this like
New York like husbig Pride event to give a speech
because he took money from this like contruction guy.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Did he say new York? Is he Itzbekistan of America? Honestly,
he probably has.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
That's like, yeah, he's probably said Kazakstan by accident because
he always says the wrong question giving his speech like that.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
My favorite moment was the video of him speaking to
like the Indian group that he kept saying.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
Pakistani, Oh god, yeah yeah, oh dear yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I think that went down like a chocolate tipa. He
did it like twice too. They corrected him that he kept.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Doing it well, they were like gelling over him, and
he said stout God.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
So there's another kind of funny one where he's he's
getting a bunch of money from this university and he
actually returns the money because his campaign is like his
mayor campaign is over, but he's still going to go
to prison for it because he lied to the government
at where he got the money though he gave it away. Okay,
so I want to start reading some of these texts
so we can get into like how explicit the stuff is.
(27:39):
On July twenty second, twenty twenty one, Adams, through the staffer,
requested that the airline manager book flights to Istabul for
Adams in order to conceal the favorable treatment. The Adam
staffer requested the airline manager charge Adams what would appear
to be a real price, Adam Stafford, how much does
he owe? Please let them make a call and that
will make the payments. Airline manage. It is very expensive
(28:01):
because it was last minute. I am working on a discount,
Adam Stafford. Okay, thank you, airline manager. I am going
to charge fifty dollars, Adam Stafford. No, airline manager. That
wouldn't work, wouldn't it, Adam Stafford, No, dear, fifty dollars?
What quote a proper price? How much should I charge?
A smiley face emoji, Adam Stafford. His every step is
(28:24):
being watched right now a thousand dollars or so let
it be somewhat real. We don't want them to say
that he is flying for free. At the moment, the
media's attention is on Eric.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Amazing stuff, the smiley pairs of the tax is Briller
throwing off.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
It's so good.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
So he paid about like one one hundred dollars for
these round trip tickets and he was upgraded to business classes.
Suck at him, and in actuality these tickets would would
again be like fifteen thousand dollars. And this is like
the same type of stuff he was doing like eight
years ago, except this time he actually is paying some money,
whereas last time he did not actually fill up those
(29:03):
envelopes with cash. Yeah, but still he's about he's about
fourteen thousand short.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
He also this a great one where like the staffers like,
do you have recommendations on where he can go to Turkey?
The airline manager, four season staffer, it's too expensive, airline manager,
why does he care? He's not going to fake his name,
will not be at anything either. Adam Stafford super super fun.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
It's so super illegal.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
I want to meet the person who's sending these texts yeah,
so bad.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
It's so funny.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Why is this like the cadence with which they're speaking
in these texts, It's just insane.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
It's incredible stuff. There's some great ones. I gotta read
this one.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
On the day the Adams fundraiser was scheduled to depart Istanbul,
Adams created a message thread between himself, the Adams Fundraiser,
and the airline manager, quote, he will try to help
with the issue with the form he can see about
a hotel or business class lounge. The manager then arranged
for the Adams fundraiser, who was otherwise on an economy ticket,
to have access to not only the Turkish Airlines business lounge,
(30:04):
but also an exclusive private suite inside the lounge, complete
with a bed and free food. The Turkish airline manager explained,
this is our suite for VIPs and we want you
to feel yourself. Two words yourself sick VIP, smiley face emoji.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Fail yourself VIP. That's what we will want.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
At another point in the exchange, Adams wrote, quote thanks
a million airline manager my brother. Which airline managers wanted anytime?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Brother? Oh yes, I feel physically unwell. They just keep
doing this. On the day he won the election.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Like the day after, the airline manager sent the following
text message, brother, congratulations, Adams responded, cannot thank you enough.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
So true, so true.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
That is good, although it's not as good as kind
of the next thing when in December twenty one he
was putting together his like mayoral like team for like
policy advisors and his transition team, and he did not
have like people from Turkey on on this list. So
this air manager said, didn't. It's it's not quite blackmail,
(31:16):
but it is certainly like bribery, saying like, hey, maybe
you should put me on like your senior on your
senior advisory team, and if you don't, then you're not
going to get free tickets anymore.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I want to read the exact line because it's so
funny the staffer sense of the airline manager list and
the airlin manager response it would suit me well to
be lead or senior advisor. Two days later, the airline
manager sent a message reiterating lead please plz please smiley
face otherwise fifty two is empty on the way back.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Seat.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
Oh good, oh my god, Lead pease you don't make
me a lead adviser. We're not going to give you
free free airplane tickets are.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Oh my god, it's so funny. Winky face.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
And then I believe he did add someone onto his team.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yep, yep, yeah, he was added to the Infrastructure, Climate
and Sustainability Committee Transition team Jesus Christ, which the whole
Sustainability Commission is just like a slush. There's another thing
later where like he's like a secret meeting of like
these Turkish donors and he calls it like a sustainability
transition meeting, so no one will know that he's having
this meeting.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
I mean you should read what the airline manager wrote
after he was added to the Climate and Sustainability and
Infrastructure Committee.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
So, on December twenty twenty one, the senior Turkish government
official sent the airline manager a series of texts noting
the airline manager's membership on Adam's Infrastructure Climate Sustainability Committe
and sending.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Applause about you.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
No, the airlineer fonded that his membership on the tradition
Committee was in service of Turkey. Quote, thank you brother.
We are doing our best to server country adequately. Your
support gives us strength here. Thank you you were always
there for us we're trying to be loyal.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
It's amazing. Oh wait is it?
Speaker 3 (33:15):
We're trying to be worthy.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah, we're trying to be worthy. Yeah, we're trying to
be worthy. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
That is so sorry. I'm trying to be worthy of you.
Thank you so much for being there. Please be so good.
I just like want to be worthy of you. Ericata.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
So by this point, I total that the Turkish airline bribes,
specifically that all the benefits total one hundred and twenty
three thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
Seats just a general life, which is also just a
small fraction of like the total amount of money he received.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
To be fat. That's probably like the face prices of
business class tickets and lounge access, which no one actually
pays for.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Yeah yeah, because like beyond the actual airline stuff, because
of like the campaign like match like a policy deals,
like he received in the end, like like ten million
dollars right from from like all of this whole ordeal.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
So so so the match funding thing basically is like
there's public matching funds for like private donations for for
mayoral candidates. There's like some things you have to go through,
but in order to get that money, right, you have
to abide by campaign finance law and all of the
So all of these like straw donor bribe donations that
he's getting are being are also I think it's like
eight to one or something like matching funds are being
(34:27):
matched by the government. Say you got like ten million
dollars matching funds.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
He's not only like doing like campaign fraud by getting
this like foreign influence amount of money. He's also just
like stealing from from everyone else too by having all
of these illegal contributions matched. Yeah, so in the end,
I think he's like he's like charged with like like
basically ten million dollars of like fraud.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
The other thing is like, like this is this is how
he won the election, Like he won the election by
spending an unbelievable amount of money and like that money.
Who's like this like stuff that he defrauded the government for.
Speaker 5 (35:03):
And it's ironic that like the campaign funding matching is
designed to like amplify the donations made by regular New
Yorkers and not make it all.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Like a super Pac game.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
Yeah, Eric Adams thought he they made an end run around.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
That, and like I did not realize just because I
had been keeping up with like Eric Adams news previous
to this, I did not realize how often his house
was getting rated by the FBI.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
There were so many, there's been so many, Like this
is all just one angle on the like thirty five three,
because there's there's so much other corruption he was doing,
Like this is just the stuff they gone specifically around
him for. But like basically everyone in the circle around
him is like also going to prison. Like to the
point where remember I was talking about the Uzbek construction
(35:45):
guy that he donated money to. Yeah, that guy also
paid off like the guy who's going to become mayor
when Adams gets arrested, So like the depity mayor like also.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Took money for that guy. Amazing. Yeah, so one of
the worst parts of this twenty first two, the Turkish
official messaged the Adam stafford noting that our Median Genocide
Remembrance Day was approaching and repeatedly asking the Adam stafford
for assurances that Adams would not make any statements about
their Armedian genocide. Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
The Adam stafford confirmed that Adams did not make a
statement about about the Armenian genocide.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Adams did not make such a statement. New York, not
the Yerevan of America.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
So she just straight up took money from the Turkish
government genocide denial for them.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Yeah so that's great. That that's incredible stuff to be fair.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
That is that is the mainstay of current American politics.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
Oh yeah yeah, and it's the best fundate of all
genocide denials.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
Yes, yes, Well this erg Adam's guy doesn't seem like
a doesn't seem too good. It is just fascinating to
me that out of all the cities, New York is
just the one city that you cannot have a normal mayor. Yeah,
just like every single mayor is is weird and fucked
up in like a different way.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Like it's just impossible. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
There was like an onion onion headline on Time that was, yeah,
it's like the mayor de Blasio like, well, well well
it's it's not so easy to have a not fucked
up mayor or something.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah. I think the exact line was, well, well, not
so easy to find a mayor doesn't suck ship down.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
The Erroganta was one hits so much harder because he's
like the law and order mayor, Like he's like you know,
like like former cop, blah blah blah. He's he's the
one making New York worse through all of like the
fucked up police stuff. Meanwhile, he's just been doing like
major crimes and having his house rated by the FBI
like every other month, also having like his friend's house
(37:38):
is rated by the FBI. Having was it like a
police chief or a police commissioner who was just rated.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
Yeah, and then the interim police commissioner they put in
often the first world.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
Yeah it's wild stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Yeah, we got to talk about his phone password before
we finish. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
So the why I want to close on is like
before he goes under, like all of his staffers are
getting visited by the FBI, and hey, you could tell
all cops and are dumb ast shit because they all
they all agreed to talk to the FBI and like
lied to this, and then we're trying to like coordinate
destroying the messages which the FBI got all the data from.
On October sixth, twenty twenty three, FBI agents executed a
(38:16):
search warrant for the electronic devices used by Eric Adams,
a defendants. So Adams was carrying several electronic devices, including
two cell phones, he was not carrying his personal cell phone,
which is a device he used to communicate about the
conduct described in this indictment. When Adams produced his personal
cell phone the next day in response to a subpoena,
it was locked, such as the device required a password
to open. Adams claimed that after he learned the investigation
(38:40):
into his contact he learned about the investigation, he changed
the passwords the day before and increased the complexity of
his password from four to six digits. Adams had done this,
he claimed to prevent members of his staff from inrittently
or intentionally deleting the contents of his phone. According to Adams,
he wished to preserve the context of its phone due
(39:00):
to the investigation. But Adams further claimed he'd forgotten the password.
He just said, was unable to provide the NBA with
the password that can unlock.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
The phone if they tried his birthday.
Speaker 4 (39:10):
It's the funniest argument. Yeah yeah, they like, no, no, no,
I changed. I changed the password so that the information
was safe and wouldn't be deleted. Also, I forgot the password.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Okay, so like presumably this is encrypted, right, but like
I cannot, Like, what the fuck is the FBI doing that.
They can't just break into this phone, like, I mean,
some phones are hard to break into, like it it is,
it is true.
Speaker 5 (39:32):
Yeah, have struggled with iPhones for what Yes, but this
is but this is Eric Adams. Yeah yeah, I mean yeah,
it might be zero zero zero zero, like they ought
to give it the elk on.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
It's dry to be honest.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Yeah, Like they've got to have some fucking like spook
from the NSA that they can illegally send his phone
over to.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
Like I'm sure they've tried Celebright. I'm sure they've tried
a whole bunch of stuff. It just doesn't always work.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yeah, Like I don't know, it makes you feel wildly
better about phone security. Oh the way, this is a
message about this public safety announcement. If you use a
face print or a fingerprint to lock your phone, the
cops can just use your face or your fingerprint to
a block it, or they can get it with a warrant.
But if it's like an actual number, like they can't
put a gun to your head and say open it,
(40:16):
which is the way that this would normally sort of work. Yeah,
so yeah, basic security thing. So in all, Adams is
being charged with simultaneously conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal
program bribery, and to receive camphree and contributions by foreign national.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
There's a kind of wire fraud.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
There's another count of solicitation of a contribution by foreign national.
There's subsequently, the fourth count is the same as a
third count. It's it's solicitation of a contribution by four
national and the fifth count is bribery. So he's like
probably going down, going down.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
He sounds pretty fucked.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
I mean, it has been interesting how much the federal
government has been her cracking down on foreign influence before
the selection, both with like tenant media, like a Russian
foreign influence stuff like this. There's been like some of
like Jimmy Dore or like orbiters that have I know,
have have been getting looked into by the FEDS for
like Russian foreign influence.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Dude.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
And this is not a show where we regularly praise
the actions of the fedral government. But it's always funny
to see my enemies having a hard time. And I'm pray,
I'm praying for that. Jackson Hinkle one which is yeah, yeah,
because it's so it's so obvious, You're so obvious that
he's he's absolutely getting paid by some by some forty government.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Yeah, I wonder which one this one is air to
one versus the FBI, which I'm just like just chomping
down popcorn and clapping like a seal watching rifles.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
Yes, yes, destroy each other no matter what happens. I'm
okay with it.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 5 (41:45):
I will repeat my position here at the end of
the show that I am prepared to vote for Joe
Biden on the condition that he immediately begins trading Eric
Adams for Abdul Julan, who does not belong to jail
Unlike Eric Adams. It'sohulan week this week, and so yeah,
he shouldn't be in prison.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Let him out. How do you feel about your mayor, Joey?
Speaker 3 (42:06):
You know, it sounds like he's he's working on some ship.
He's got to figure out if he really wants you know.
I see. This is the thing too, is it's like,
do I want to be like, Wow, congrats to the
FBI on this investigation. No. That being said, it is
really funny to see this all go down. I think
(42:28):
also just the amount of bullshit that he has done
while he's in office. But both legally and over the
table and under the table, and it's kind of funny
to see like this meet the thing that takes him
down yet other one of my favorite tweets about all
this with somebody who was like, I'm sure Eric Adams
all of a sudden, it's going to be uh really
pro a prison reform all of a sudden, but I
(42:51):
I hope so, you know, that would be a crazy It's.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Like an abolitionist.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
I'm getting flashbacks person abolition arts. I'm getting flashbacks when
a when a oh god, that's the same to Blasio.
Uh the governor, the governor, Oh my god, former governor,
like what he was having all of this shit come
out and like the last thing he did in office
was the legalized weed, and it was like such a
like last ditch, Like fine, here, you guys go like
(43:18):
like are we going to get something like that? Are
we gonna get? Well? I guess he tried with the
trash cans and people rejected that. But it's been an experience.
I hope for the sake of the city that uh,
you know, he faces consequences for this and it's never
back in New York politics. But I guess we'll see
(43:39):
what happens.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
No, I'm not going to cheer on the FBI, but
but I am pro cop on cop of violence.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
That's true, and that's true, and that's all this is.
That's that's all this is. So that's fine.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
I'm pro irony. I'm pro like like you're getting got
by the same like people you're bros.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
I am interested in what the next New York mayoral
election will look like.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
We're bringing in Laurie Lightfoot, let's go on hat.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
And the small possibility that, depending on how this next
election goes, we could have a Trump versus Clinton mayoral
race in New York. I would love to watch.
Speaker 5 (44:20):
Maybe Hillary Clinton will finally make her film about the
Syrian democratic forces she's been promising to make for years.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
I want to close on a kind of slightly more
serious struggles are connected note, because the thing about Eric
Adams is that he was the guy who was brought
in black cop like very specifically brought in and his
thing was basically to contain the twenty twenty uprising, right.
He was a guy whose thing was we're bringing in
the kind of revolution, We're stomping all of this stuff out,
like all of the sort of like gains of anti
(44:52):
police stuff that you'd made, all of the sort of
ideological games been made. We're going to wipe all that out.
And I think it is really significant that the government
who is funding him is a Turkish government because if
you look at the last cycle, right when so Eric
Adams is starting to do this in twenty fourteen twenty fifteen,
what's what's happening in Turkey in that time is that
Turkey have been one of the big sites of huge uprisings.
(45:13):
In twenty thirteen they have one of the biggest, like
of that cycle of protests. So twenty thirteen is the
second of the of the waves from like the Occupy
twenty eleven waves, Right, there's a big wave in twenty eleven,
and then twenty thirteen to second one, one of the
biggest one is in Turkey. And Turkey's eventual solution to
this is basically just the wholesale slaughter of the Curtish
revolution that was happening. And you know, literally in twenty
(45:36):
fourteen at the same time twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, at
the same time as the Michael Brown uprising is going on,
and then Baltimore goes up right at the same time
that's happening. There's like these are just Kurdish uprisings in Turkey,
That's where all the fire bombing happens, right, These these
these things are very, very intimately connected. There's a reason
why other than just sort of cartriganous corruption stuff that
these that these forces are aligned with each other because
(45:57):
the same people behind the American prison state are also
the same people who are fucking backing this Turkish extermination
as we've been against the Kurds, and we're going to
either win our freedom together or we're going to have
a thousand more fucking grek.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
Adams is exactly yeah. And I mean I think, like
going back to what I was saying before, like the
craziest thing about all this and like this is definitely
something that I've kind of had to like step back
and be like, all right, Like I obviously am existing
within like a specific community, Like New York is a
huge city. It's the lowerest city in the US, and
(46:31):
there's lots of different smaller communities, and I was like,
I feel like everybody that I know and everybody I
interact with hates Eric Adams has like their own list
of reasons why like he has done X Y Z
thing and they're like whether it's like my friends that
are teachers or like work for or just use public
libraries that he has like really decided to attack and
(46:53):
like defund for various reasons, or like friends that have
had to deal with like the prison system or whatever.
Or last year, I'd been working on an investigative show
that was looking into a lot of the the situation
at Rikers, and you know, Rikers is supposed to be
closed in twenty twenty seven at a RK. Adams has
really tried to push back against that, despite the fact
(47:15):
that it's like there's a federal invested investigation into the
situation there and it's not like the conditions are not good.
It is an unpopular solution, you know, like most New
Yorkers agree that there needs to be some other alternative
than Rikers and just sending people to like literally an island.
That being said, like he won the election. He won
(47:35):
his mayoral election it which sort of like surprising. He
was kind of the underdog. There were other candidates that
I think people had kind of been expecting to win,
and yeah, he was the law and order guy. He
was coming in is supposed to be this like alternative
to like the twenty twenty uprising to what was seen
as this like chaos, And again, yeah, it's the irony
(47:56):
of him getting got by its own system, getting got
by the fact that like he just keeps doing crimes.
He loves doing crimes, his favorite thing. And then at
the same time, it's like he's caused all this damage
to like individual like specific programs in the city, specific
systems that were really helping people. He has spread like
(48:16):
misinformation about migrants that have been in New York. He
has been like there's just a laundry list of things
that he has done that has been like insanely harmful
for like various reasons. And you know what, if this
is going to be the thing that's going to go
down at the end of the day, this is Sabrina
Carpenter apparently that also those of you who don't know,
(48:37):
the Sabrina Carpenter Feather music video apparently was a big
part of the Eric Adams indictment from kind of the
more local side involving the church that she was filming
at and the I'm not sure what his official position is,
but like the priest who had kind of allowed her
to come in and film, and then it ended up
that he was demoted because if you've listened to a
(48:58):
Sabrina Carpenter song, you can see why the Catholic Church
might not be super excited about that.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
And then he.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
Decided to cooperate with the investigation since the church wasn't
super happy with him. This whole thing is just there's something.
It's like, there's so many aspects of this that are
so crazy. If this is gonna be gonna get them. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Yeah, So someone's gonna do like a thirty part podcast
series about this something I'm gonna listen to every single
and there's.
Speaker 3 (49:26):
Gonna be so much more stuff that's gonna come out.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
That's yeah.
Speaker 4 (49:30):
Speaking of podcasts, Joey, do you want to plug your
work for sure?
Speaker 2 (49:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
So I'm right now producing a show called but We Loved,
which is on Iheart's Network. It's part of our Unspoken Network,
which is our LGBTQ plus kind of focus shows, and
you can find that on Spotify, Apple Music, iHeartMedia, app whatever,
all the places. I also previously had worked on a
show called Afterlives. If you are interested in learning more
(49:56):
about wrikers and particularly some of the policy that you know,
Eric Adams himself has worked to either stop from being
effective or stop from making the reforms it's supposed to
be happening. Regards to the whole Wriker situation, you should
check out that show. Yeah, that's That's where I'm at.
You can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram at
(50:19):
pat not Pratt. That's p A T T n O
T p R A T T. People get my last.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Name wrong a lot, we'll put them in the description. Yeah, yeah, Joey,
thank you for coming on.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
And fuck I hope, I hope, I hope we all
get rid of our fucking Beyers because Jesus Christ, oh God.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
Yah Future the Democratic Party, Lory Light put Eric Adams
twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
Let's go get me.
Speaker 6 (50:47):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 6 (51:00):
You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here
listed directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Thanks for listening.
Also media, Welcome, Dick It Happened Here a podcast where
we're bringing Shitty Mayor one Day back to celebrate an
incredibly special occasion, which is the unbelievably funny federal indictment
of what New York Mayor Eric Adams with me talk about.
This is Garrison Davis, is James Stout and and we
(00:24):
have a New York expert, our fellow trade unionist, Yeah,
Joey pat who works on what we Love and Afterlives.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Joey, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Hey, thank you for having me. Excited to be here.
I hope I can. I can provide some insight to
New York City and everything that's been happening lately.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
The Eric Adams news really is kind of the most
positive piece of duce that we've had the past month.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It's been a really bad it's keeping me going.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, I feel like I gotta say I found out
the news of the indictment. I was at like a
gay bar near me, like at a like queer Pool event,
and like everybody got the news at the same time,
and it.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Was one of the funniest.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Ways to learn that Eric Adams has been a yacht
was that was the like the most joy I've seen
from a from a group of New Yorkers in a while.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
What a beauty.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, okay, so I want to I want to open
the floor up to Eric Adams stories. But first I
need to complain about the fact that so I have
I have long as a proud Chicago Wan who has
now fled Chicago for Portland. I have long made fun
of New York for being a Tier two Chinese city
that thinks that it's the greatest city in the world.
And then I learned they didn't have trash cans, which
(01:41):
pushed this at like, this is not even like a
Tier five. This is a level of trash collection that
you see in like rural HOOBEI like, what the fuck Britain.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
The United Kingdom where we got rid of trash cans too?
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Oh my god, that's not true though, because luckily Eric
Adams didn't make the trash cans.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
It's just what is going on.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
The first American city to ever think of this idea.
I'm for context. I am also in a unique position
here because I'm from Chicago, and yeah, oftentimes get my
friends and family that still live in Chicago confused as
to why I live out here. I do love New York.
I I it is a great city to live in.
(02:24):
But these are the kind of moments we have where
I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I can't. I can't.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I honestly, And then.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Think about this.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Eric Adams stuff too.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
It's like the stuff he's so, there's gonna be a
second federal indictment with more people in it, but the
first one it's kind of brush league shit by Chicago standards.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Like like if you compare this.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
To like like Rob Lagoyevitch trying to sell off, like
trying to sell Obama's Senate seat, It's like, okay, yeah,
I've been saying New York wants.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
To be Chicago. They're starting a second city here too.
Oh no, No, the ads in the subway and every
time takes away a part of my soul. Like I'm like,
you cannot claim that that is us.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
It just means there's gonna be even more insufferable people.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
This this sucks. Yeah, a second second city has hit
the Towers. Another great Rag Adams moment. Eric Adams hit
the Towers.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
No no, but he had he had this great interview
where he was asked to summarize like, what.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Makes New York great in one word?
Speaker 4 (03:30):
And he gave the answer, h New York, which is
two words, and that explained it's because it's the only
city where you can wake up and have nine to
eleven happen and also open up a small business. One
of the one of the funniest Eric Adams moments I've
ever seen till until he was indicted, which is now
the new funniest Aracatams moment, which we should probably get
(03:53):
to because this is not a short indictment.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
Wait are we're doing all Eric adams favorite moments yet?
Because I have a fat we got run?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Mine?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah? Do you want to hit his with yous? Jerry?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Mine's definitely. I think the ongoing saga of just whether
or not he's a vegan and the fact that he
repeatedly claims he's a vegan and thinks that vegan.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I didn't know this.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah, he's a vegan. He talks a lot about how
he's a vegan and all the health benefits and how
it's he has a lot of weird like beliefs about
health and stuff that have come out over his you know,
mayor old run. But apparently he's not actually a vegan
because he's been seen like eating chicken on camera and
(04:35):
like that the weird video of his apartment when he
was running. That was the Brooklyn apartment that he may
or may not live in, Like there was like some
sort of meat product in the fridge or something. There's
been a whole thing about how like he maybe and
he's like admitted that he's like eaten meat sometimes, Like
he's like, oh, well, you know, I'll just have like
a little nibble, like it's it's it doesn't count. Chicken
is a vegan?
Speaker 4 (04:54):
What do you mean he identifies as a vegan vegan.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
He's like some kind of like like sixteenth century Catholic
you know where they have all these weird exceptions for
fish and like right right, that's.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
A repent and then whatever to confass and and then
he's getting he gets you get a card back.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
That's a good one. That's a good one. Yeah, Jewey's
Jewi's kind of mentioned mine.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
But the fact that he definitely is from New Jersey,
which I think is what allowed him to use a
trash can, Like he definitely does not live in New York.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
There's there's no way, like.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
My favorite also relates to him not living in New York,
which is when Kurb staked out his New York apartment
and he came back once parked illegally and then caused
a traffic jam by parking illegally so bad that he
couldn't put out of the parking. He wasn't in a
parking space. He was in someone's driveway. So then he
proceeded to drive along the sidewalk, and they like filmed
(05:51):
him doing this, and he confessed to doing it and
was like it was a terrible mistake, just an incredible
sequence of events.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
I mean, maybe that is like a New York mayor
who can't drive, Like, I guess that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Like yet refuses to use mass transit.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Oh God, that's true. That's true. He does hate public transportation.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
God, you can just send more cops in the subway.
That'll fix it, all right, Oh God, let's uh yeah,
let's let's let's get into this. Get start.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So okay, So the things here is being indicted for
are effectively okay. So he took a bunch of different
bribes in different ways. So he took I guess there's
two broad categories of bribes that he took, which is
the bribes that are campaign donations that he funneled through
(06:38):
straw donors, which is the thing where you like there's
like limits on how much money you could donate to someone, right,
So what you do is you find like ten people
and you give them all two thousand dollars so they
can still donate it even though it's the money from you.
This is unbelievably legal. And the second type is him
just accepting unbelievable amounts of like gifts and stuff from
(06:59):
a Turk shairliner. Now, the interesting thing about this is
that you would expect this is the thing that started
when he was a mayor, but like, no, he was,
so he was. He was the borough president of Brooklyn
for a bunch of years before he became mayor.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
And this is like as.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Burro president is when he really started doing all of
this random, weird corruption stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
He's been doing this for almost like ten years.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah, I kind of love this too, because the like
Brooklyn borough president, it's kind of a fake job, like
you don't really do anything. And I love the fact
that he still managed to find ways to be corrupt
and his like fake.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Job that he had.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
It's stunning, Oh, because I'm going to read starting with
the indictment a bit. By smuggling their contributions to Adams
through US based straw donors, Adams oversees contributors defeated federal
laws that served to prevent foreign influence on US elections.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Wealth.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
The individuals evaded laws designed to limit their power over
elected officials by restricting the amount of money one person
could donate to a candidate, and businesses circumvented New York
City's ban on corporate contributions by fundeling the donations the
multiple employees, frustrating a law that cc reduce corporate power
in politics. Adams increases fundraising by accepting these concealed illegal
donations at the cost of giving a secret patients undue
(08:16):
influence over him that the law tries to prevent. So
this is really funny because so there's three different illegal
like things that he's done, like three shildo owners. So
like there's like there's three kinds of campaign contributions you
can't do. It's like corporations one person there's like limits
and how men watch an individual person could donate and
you can't get you can't get donations from like people
(08:37):
not from the US, and he managed to both individually
and in the same scheme violate every single one of
these laws.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
It's it's shitty, widely incredible. I guess I would like
to learn more.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
I mean, at some point, and I'm sure we'll get
into it as how like explicit this whole like Turkish
funding really is like extremely.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
About it. Yeah, I'm sure we'll get to this.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
It's when they're like, hey, Eric, you're not going to
say anything about the Median genocide au that Tony didn't happen, bro,
don't mention the genocide.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Oh yeah, we'll get to that.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
So Eric Adams, the defendant, also saw and received other
improper benefits from some of the same co conspirators who
fundised shchra altonations to his campaign. In particular, a senior
official in the Turkish diplomatic establishments henceforth Turkish official who
facilitated many Chral donations to Adams, also arrange for Adams
and his companions to receive free or discounted travel on
(09:31):
Turkey's national airline quote the Turkish Airline, which is owned
a significant part by the Turkish governments, to destinations including France, China,
Sri Lanka, India, Hungary, and Turkey itself. The Turkish officials
and other Turkish nationals further arrange for Adams and his
companions to receive, among other things, free rooms at opulent hotels,
free meals of high end restaurants, and free luxurious entertainment
(09:52):
well in Turkey.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
So this is all very very explicit.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
He's got wanderlust, you know, supposed to be like a
travel blogger like Girley, like doing tiktoks and you know,
unfortunately he had to become mayor.
Speaker 5 (10:07):
So yeah, a bond of log forster.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Mayor starting to do the job he wants to.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, it's very tragic. Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
So actually the first thing Turkish influence thing that he did.
I actually, this is weirdly the one part of this
they don't have a problem with. One of the big
things he was trying to get was there's a giant
like uke Turkish consulate building that they opened kind of recently,
and a big part of this was getting permission to
open the Turkish consulate without a fire inspection, so that
air to one could visit for like the opening of
(10:37):
the consulate and look, okay, we already can't fly to
Turkey because of a public support for the Curtis Free movement.
So like, I'm just gonna say this, I am entirely
okay with this. I am I don't give a shit
if they don't do fire inspections.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
I'm okay with heir to one being in a non
fire safe building.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah yeah, like fuck him.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Like, if the guy who burned hundred and fifty people
alive and Cindy wants to fucking burn a death in
his own consulate, then let him. Like I Jennie widely
don't give a shit about this. She did threaten the
job of like the New York Fire Department's fire inspector,
which kind of sucks, but like, if everyone wants to
burn to death in his death trap, let him do that.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
This is one of the.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Text conversations that done. Was was uh, I don't know
if leaked is the right word, but yeah, like cause
it was.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
It was.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
They were like there was something they said to where
they were like, we've done a lot for you. Now
it's time for you to do something for the Republic
of Turkey. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, we'll get we'll get to that.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
This is yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so good town shit
I was like, all right. After Eric Adams, a defendant,
first travel to Turkey in twenty fifteen, the Turkish official
introduced Adams to Turkish Airlines general manager in New York
City area in twenty sixteen and twice in twenty seventeen. Again,
this is all before he US Mayor Adam solicited and
(11:56):
accepted free and heavily discounted luxury air travel from Turkish
Airline as part of Turkish officials' efforts to gain an
influence over Adams on three separate trips. Basically, like he's
getting first class tickets from all of these people. It's
so much money worth of stuff, like just like thousands
of dollars. The exact totals, like all of the gifts
he took from Turkish Airlines's like one hundred and it's
(12:17):
like one hundred and thirty one thousand something dollars.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, man, So like any time I read a paragraph
of this, just assume that in between like whatever paragraph
I'm reading and the stuff I didn't read before it,
he's taken another ten thousand dollars of free like first
class rides a Turkish airline.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
It is a blessing in disguise, I will say that
I will never see Eric Adams on a flight because
I cannot fly.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
It was Turkish Airlines. That's true.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
There's a very funny line about this, because the Turkish
airline provided free travel benefits were tens of thousands of
dollars to Eric Adams, the defendants. He flew the Turkish
airline even when doing so was otherwise inconvenience.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, this is fucking correct.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
For example, for example, the July in August twenty seventeen trip,
Adam's 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 quote,
transferring here you know first off is always in istanbul
spelled very wrong and lowercase is true. When adams partner
(13:23):
later inquired about planning a trip to the Eastern island Chile,
Adams repeatedly asked her whether Turkish airlines could be used
for these flights, requesting her to call Turkish Airlines to
confirm they did not have roots between New York and Chile.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Why would Tish airlines have a flight from New York?
Speaker 5 (13:43):
Oh my God, which spits part of the Greater Ottoman Empire.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
You know, I would take bribes from Air Canada, but
I'm also not running for mayor.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
So yeah, well you could run for Bira president. That's true.
That's true. I could. I could become.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
Elected the mayor of southful That is very doable. Every Similarly,
lots of the mayors of South Fulton have had very
odd kind of controversies. So what I'm saying is South
Fulton is basically Georgia's version of New York.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
New York is a South Fulton of America. Yeah. Have
you guys seen a video clip of him. Every city
he goes to, he says, like, New York's the city
of America. Yeah, crazy, It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Stambul of America.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
So this is all very funny. But this is all happening.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
All of the tens of thousands of dollars at this
point of money that he's taking from Turkey is all
happening at a period where Turkey is butchering Kurds across the
Middle East, like his first trip there. And this is
all again well before his mayor while he's like Brooklyn
Borough president is four months before the fire bomber of
that city that I talked about where they were again,
they burned one hundred and fifty civilians alive in fucking building.
(14:54):
If I'm remembering correctly, I'm pretty sure they killed. I'm
pretty sure they burned the city council alive. That's just
the stuff in Turkey, and like we have covered extensively
on this show, Turkey's like drone warfare program. There's the
whole thing of it. Has been long suspected that the
Turkish government was aiding ISIS during the period because they
were like using basically using them as a proxy to
(15:15):
fight like Kurtish Freedom Movement forces in Syria.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
I think you could definitely say that, like former ISIS
fighters are now fighting for the Turkish against the Kurds
in the Iraqi Curtis done.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, I've said that before.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
The Kurds will tell you that former I know David
Graebery at the Apologies you spent actually who who smuggled
a bunch of drone parts too, had a story about
how we soccing people like yeah, they would like they
would pick up ISIS fighters and they would look at
their possessions and they every single one of them as
Turkish passports. They all have like Turkish I did shit.
It's like, hm, I wonder where these people came from.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
Even like I'll just say that I have spoken to
some people who were part of the fight against ISIS
who discovered the blank Turkish passports when taking like ISIS
buildings and ISIS strongholds.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah, so there's I mean, just this is a period
of even by the standards of Turkey, like unbelievable Turkish violence.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
This is their their invasion of Syria.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And you know, this is the period in which Eric
Adams decides that he's going to become a nation to
the Turkish state. And so obviously, like he lies about
this to the governments because again you're not allowed to
do this. There's a bunch of very funny schemes that
he does. As Brooklyn Borough President, Adams employed a scheduler
henceforth known as the Adams Scheduler, who pointed it who
(16:35):
manages appointments, meetings, and other official events. Despite her status
as a New York City employee, the Adams Scheduler was
used by Adams to perform personal tasks for him, such
as collecting rent at a Brooklyn property he owned. Adams
also assigned the scheduler to pay various expenses for him,
after which Adams would reimburse the scheduler in cash. In
twenty seventeen, Adams sent a series of emails to the
(16:57):
scheduler directing the scheduler to pay for the free twenty
seventeen flights he and his companions had already taken on
the Turkish air Line, but the emails provided inconsistent explanations.
In some Adams suggested that the Adams schedulers should pay
using Adam's credit card, while on others, Adams claimed to
have left cash in an envelope for the Adams scheduler
(17:18):
to send to the Turkish air Line.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Ah, it's that's how you pay. That's how I pay
for all my fights. Cash. It an envido.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
This is how we tried to cover up for the
fact that he's not paying for these flights. And he'll
pay like six hundred dollars for a thread dollars ticket,
but he's like sending envelopes to his scheduler to hand
to the Turkish air Line.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
A man who was a call doing an absolutely terrible
job of covering his own ass.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
You know who else is taking bribes from the Turkish government.
We cannot It's not our products and services. It's it's
someone else's products and services. Ours are all fine. We
(18:04):
are back. So there's actually another paragraph of that part.
For example, on November twenty fifth, twenty seventeen, Adam sent
an email to the scheduler saying that with respects to
the July trip quote, I left you the money for
the International airline and did an envelope and your top
gest drawer please send it to them. So the funny
(18:24):
one about this, right, So he's supposed to have this
like cash dead drop to pay for the island tickets.
Then he just like never does it because the tickets
are free. So he just like stops covering his tracks.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, amazing, and doesn't use signal.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah it's really sounding okay. So what is Turkish government
getting from this in return for travel benefits the Turkish
official provided or range In about twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen,
Eric Adams, the defendant, granted a political request from the
Turkish official prior to Adam's twenty fifteen travel to Turkey,
which Adams knew and disclosed to the one of the
(18:58):
monitoring agencies have been funded by, among other entities, the
Turkish Consulate, the Turkish Airline in three separate municipalities in Turkey.
Adams maintained a relationship with a Turkish community center in Brooklyn.
In or about twenty sixteen, the Turkish official told Adams
that the community center was affiliated with a Turkish movement
that was hostile to Turkey's government, and that if Adams
wished to continue receiving support from the Turkish government, Adams
(19:21):
could no longer associate with the community center. Adam zach
wies Scott, I wonder who it was, See, Okay, so
I looked into this. No one that I've seen doing
reporting on this seems to know which center this was.
But but this has to be a Goulinist thing. Yeah,
So to people who didn't spend all of their childhoodmired
in the intpt of Turkish politics, Airedwan's the current rule
(19:44):
of Turkey, Gulam was like one of his old old allies.
But they had this giant falling out and a huge
part of what everyone was doing in the twenty tens
was like trying to purge all of the Gulanists from everywhere.
Like there was this whole scheme running I think through
Michael Flynn, where Turkey was trying to get Trump to
like the Gulan's like in like a compound and I
(20:06):
think Virginia or something, and Turkey was trying to get
Trump to like raid the compound and send them to Turkey,
which didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, that line's up with the coup. They are twenty
sixteen coup, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, So you know, it's always been unclear to me
exactly how much influence these people have. But the one
thing I will say is that so I had a
classmate in college who was in Turkey for a long time,
and their line about it was like, yeah, I don't know,
like how much of this sort of Gulist deep state
shit is true. But also there were like gulanest people
who you could go to who had like all the
answers to like state exams if you want to be
(20:41):
willing to get in bed, whether they would just give
him all the answers, So, like, you know, they weren't
not a part of this, And I'm pretty sure what
happened here was that Adams was like cutting off all
contact with these people because this this is part of
the goolan Ist split, I'm not one hundred percent sure
because there are multiple community centers in Brooklyn, in Brooklyn
like Turchimuni centers in Brooklyn, but I'm about eighty percent
sure that's what happens. So that's like one of the
(21:03):
first direct influence things. Okay, so he's doing the influence
peddling stuff, right, He's doing his partially through the airlines.
And then also he's just taking a bunch of legal
fundraising money.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
On July twenty second, twenty eighteen, the same day as
this fundraising event, the Adam staffer and the promoter discussed
by text message a possible trip by Adams the Turkey.
The promoter stated, in part, fundraising Turkey is not legal,
but I think I can raise money for your campaign
off the record. The Adam stafford inquired, how will Adams
declare that money? The promoter responded, he won't declare it
(21:37):
or will make the donation. Do an American citizen in
the US a Turk, I'll give cash to him in Turkey.
We'll I'll send it to an American. He will make
the donation to you. The Adam staffer replied, I think
he won't get involved in such games. They might cause
a stink later on, but I'll ask anyways. The Adam
Stafford then asked how much do you think would come
from you? The promoter responded max one hundred k. The
(21:58):
Adam Stafferd wrote, one hundred k. Do you have a
chance to transfer that here? We can't do it while
Eric is in Turkey, to which your promoter replied, let's think.
After the conversation, the Adam Stafferd asked Adams whether that
Adam Stafford should pursue the unlawful for contributions offered by
the promoter, and, contrary to the staffers expectations, Adams directed
(22:19):
the staffer to pursue the promoter's illegal skime.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
I feel like you should know who you're working for
well enough to be like, hey, this guy is offering
a completely illegal fundraising scheme that we know is illegal,
and I don't think my boss will take it.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
And then the boss turns around to me, he's.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
Like, yeah, fuck it, raised buddy, it might cause a
big stink later on.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
You don't say, yeah, that's wild. To be fair, it did.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Yeah, it's so explicit, and I do want to get
to some some of the other text messages sooner or later,
because it really just shows how like aware everyone involved
is of over like what's going on.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, they're doing crimes.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
It's literally just hey, what should I do with the
crime money?
Speaker 2 (22:59):
The illegal crime?
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Have we mentioned the legal.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
So partially this is being run through Turkish airlines, Partially
this is being run through a Turkish university, and partially
this is being run through just a bunch of businessmen,
some of whom are Turkish, some of them aren't. So
here's like the next thing I was gonna read. Although
Adams knew that Businessman one was a Turkish national who
could not lawfully contribute to US elections, Adams directed the
staffer to obtain the illegal contributions offered by Businessman one.
Following up on this directive, Adams wrote to the staffer
(23:26):
that business or one quote is ready to help. I
don't want his help to be wasted. So they are
just like unbelievably directly being like, yeah, we know this
guy can't do this, but we're just going to tell
him to send this money anyways.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, it's insane how slapstick they are about this.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, and like you know, they're kind of trying to
come from the tracks. I think this part of it
is one of the things that I think like was
one of the things that kind of went viral over this.
So Adams is trying to arrange another like fifty thousand
dollars contribution from a third Turkish businessman, and in the
middle of this, he's saying to the staffer, quote to
(24:06):
be on the safe side, please delete capital P, capital D.
Please delete all messages you send me, Adams responded, always do.
Now we don't for a fact that a bunch of
these messages we're simply not deleted, considering.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
That you just read them.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
I do also think it was worth noting that some
of these efforts certainly started to ramp up around his
mayoral campaign, because some of these Turkish officials thought that
if Adams becomes a more like prominent member in politics,
he ever like runs for president, if they can gain
influence over him from like pretty early on, that would
be really useful for the Turkish government. That is some
(24:45):
of like the reasoning behind this like decades long campaign
like puppet Eric Adams.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Maybe the Turkish government had seen Nate Silver's now infamous tweet.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
It will be the next Yeah, I mean it's all
nights any such case, any case.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, snate silver who got them to chase us around
with drones last last October.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
He keeps getting more businessman to donate tens of thousands
of dollars.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Oh yeah, it's so funny.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
It's like repeatedly, he just keeps getting more and more
and more.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
And the funniest part is that like by like guy
number four, he's doing this with he's like telling the
guy how to do straw donations where he's like, yeah, no,
you can't donate ten thousand dollars, but give two thousand
dollars to.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Each of your employees and they'll do it.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Yeah. He's doing like instructions for each of these guys,
and it's like at a certain point, like some of
the early airline stuff is yes, illegal and sketchy, but
like you know, it's it's just getting some nice plane tickets.
By like twenty twenty one, he's just teaching them how
to do like super illegal like campaign fraud.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Yeah, you've like committed so much, like you're just like
into deep, like you can't like.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
What's there to do? Yeah, you know who else is
in too deep?
Speaker 1 (25:57):
It's the products and services who control the podcasts podcast
support that one. Yeah wow, wows not so much to
say by the Reagan coin people.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
They have a very little editorial control.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Are supposed to delete those tags.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
There are so many funny ones. He also he also
is taking.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Money from this Lusbek construction guy where he takes a
bunch of money that like shows up at this like
New York like husbig Pride event to give a speech
because he took money from this like contruction guy.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Did he say new York? Is he Itzbekistan of America? Honestly,
he probably has.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
That's like, yeah, he's probably said Kazakstan by accident because
he always says the wrong question giving his speech like that.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
My favorite moment was the video of him speaking to
like the Indian group that he kept saying.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
Pakistani, Oh god, yeah yeah, oh dear yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I think that went down like a chocolate tipa. He
did it like twice too. They corrected him that he kept.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Doing it well, they were like gelling over him, and
he said stout God.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
So there's another kind of funny one where he's he's
getting a bunch of money from this university and he
actually returns the money because his campaign is like his
mayor campaign is over, but he's still going to go
to prison for it because he lied to the government
at where he got the money though he gave it away. Okay,
so I want to start reading some of these texts
so we can get into like how explicit the stuff is.
(27:39):
On July twenty second, twenty twenty one, Adams, through the staffer,
requested that the airline manager book flights to Istabul for
Adams in order to conceal the favorable treatment. The Adam
staffer requested the airline manager charge Adams what would appear
to be a real price, Adam Stafford, how much does
he owe? Please let them make a call and that
will make the payments. Airline manage. It is very expensive
(28:01):
because it was last minute. I am working on a discount,
Adam Stafford. Okay, thank you, airline manager. I am going
to charge fifty dollars, Adam Stafford. No, airline manager. That
wouldn't work, wouldn't it, Adam Stafford, No, dear, fifty dollars?
What quote a proper price? How much should I charge?
A smiley face emoji, Adam Stafford. His every step is
(28:24):
being watched right now a thousand dollars or so let
it be somewhat real. We don't want them to say
that he is flying for free. At the moment, the
media's attention is on Eric.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Amazing stuff, the smiley pairs of the tax is Briller
throwing off.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
It's so good.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
So he paid about like one one hundred dollars for
these round trip tickets and he was upgraded to business classes.
Suck at him, and in actuality these tickets would would
again be like fifteen thousand dollars. And this is like
the same type of stuff he was doing like eight
years ago, except this time he actually is paying some money,
whereas last time he did not actually fill up those
(29:03):
envelopes with cash. Yeah, but still he's about he's about
fourteen thousand short.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
He also this a great one where like the staffers like,
do you have recommendations on where he can go to Turkey?
The airline manager, four season staffer, it's too expensive, airline manager,
why does he care? He's not going to fake his name,
will not be at anything either. Adam Stafford super super fun.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
It's so super illegal.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
I want to meet the person who's sending these texts yeah,
so bad.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
It's so funny.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Why is this like the cadence with which they're speaking
in these texts, It's just insane.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
It's incredible stuff. There's some great ones. I gotta read
this one.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
On the day the Adams fundraiser was scheduled to depart Istanbul,
Adams created a message thread between himself, the Adams Fundraiser,
and the airline manager, quote, he will try to help
with the issue with the form he can see about
a hotel or business class lounge. The manager then arranged
for the Adams fundraiser, who was otherwise on an economy ticket,
to have access to not only the Turkish Airlines business lounge,
(30:04):
but also an exclusive private suite inside the lounge, complete
with a bed and free food. The Turkish airline manager explained,
this is our suite for VIPs and we want you
to feel yourself. Two words yourself sick VIP, smiley face emoji.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Fail yourself VIP. That's what we will want.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
At another point in the exchange, Adams wrote, quote thanks
a million airline manager my brother. Which airline managers wanted anytime?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Brother? Oh yes, I feel physically unwell. They just keep
doing this. On the day he won the election.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Like the day after, the airline manager sent the following
text message, brother, congratulations, Adams responded, cannot thank you enough.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
So true, so true.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
That is good, although it's not as good as kind
of the next thing when in December twenty one he
was putting together his like mayoral like team for like
policy advisors and his transition team, and he did not
have like people from Turkey on on this list. So
this air manager said, didn't. It's it's not quite blackmail,
(31:16):
but it is certainly like bribery, saying like, hey, maybe
you should put me on like your senior on your
senior advisory team, and if you don't, then you're not
going to get free tickets anymore.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I want to read the exact line because it's so
funny the staffer sense of the airline manager list and
the airlin manager response it would suit me well to
be lead or senior advisor. Two days later, the airline
manager sent a message reiterating lead please plz please smiley
face otherwise fifty two is empty on the way back.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Seat.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
Oh good, oh my god, Lead pease you don't make
me a lead adviser. We're not going to give you
free free airplane tickets are.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Oh my god, it's so funny. Winky face.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
And then I believe he did add someone onto his team.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yep, yep, yeah, he was added to the Infrastructure, Climate
and Sustainability Committee Transition team Jesus Christ, which the whole
Sustainability Commission is just like a slush. There's another thing
later where like he's like a secret meeting of like
these Turkish donors and he calls it like a sustainability
transition meeting, so no one will know that he's having
this meeting.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
I mean you should read what the airline manager wrote
after he was added to the Climate and Sustainability and
Infrastructure Committee.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
So, on December twenty twenty one, the senior Turkish government
official sent the airline manager a series of texts noting
the airline manager's membership on Adam's Infrastructure Climate Sustainability Committe
and sending.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Applause about you.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
No, the airlineer fonded that his membership on the tradition
Committee was in service of Turkey. Quote, thank you brother.
We are doing our best to server country adequately. Your
support gives us strength here. Thank you you were always
there for us we're trying to be loyal.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
It's amazing. Oh wait is it?
Speaker 3 (33:15):
We're trying to be worthy.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah, we're trying to be worthy. Yeah, we're trying to
be worthy. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
That is so sorry. I'm trying to be worthy of you.
Thank you so much for being there. Please be so good.
I just like want to be worthy of you. Ericata.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
So by this point, I total that the Turkish airline bribes,
specifically that all the benefits total one hundred and twenty
three thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
Seats just a general life, which is also just a
small fraction of like the total amount of money he received.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
To be fat. That's probably like the face prices of
business class tickets and lounge access, which no one actually
pays for.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Yeah yeah, because like beyond the actual airline stuff, because
of like the campaign like match like a policy deals,
like he received in the end, like like ten million
dollars right from from like all of this whole ordeal.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
So so so the match funding thing basically is like
there's public matching funds for like private donations for for
mayoral candidates. There's like some things you have to go through,
but in order to get that money, right, you have
to abide by campaign finance law and all of the
So all of these like straw donor bribe donations that
he's getting are being are also I think it's like
eight to one or something like matching funds are being
(34:27):
matched by the government. Say you got like ten million
dollars matching funds.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
He's not only like doing like campaign fraud by getting
this like foreign influence amount of money. He's also just
like stealing from from everyone else too by having all
of these illegal contributions matched. Yeah, so in the end,
I think he's like he's like charged with like like
basically ten million dollars of like fraud.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
The other thing is like, like this is this is how
he won the election, Like he won the election by
spending an unbelievable amount of money and like that money.
Who's like this like stuff that he defrauded the government for.
Speaker 5 (35:03):
And it's ironic that like the campaign funding matching is
designed to like amplify the donations made by regular New
Yorkers and not make it all.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Like a super Pac game.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
Yeah, Eric Adams thought he they made an end run around.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
That, and like I did not realize just because I
had been keeping up with like Eric Adams news previous
to this, I did not realize how often his house
was getting rated by the FBI.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
There were so many, there's been so many, Like this
is all just one angle on the like thirty five three,
because there's there's so much other corruption he was doing,
Like this is just the stuff they gone specifically around
him for. But like basically everyone in the circle around
him is like also going to prison. Like to the
point where remember I was talking about the Uzbek construction
(35:45):
guy that he donated money to. Yeah, that guy also
paid off like the guy who's going to become mayor
when Adams gets arrested, So like the depity mayor like also.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Took money for that guy. Amazing. Yeah, so one of
the worst parts of this twenty first two, the Turkish
official messaged the Adam stafford noting that our Median Genocide
Remembrance Day was approaching and repeatedly asking the Adam stafford
for assurances that Adams would not make any statements about
their Armedian genocide. Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
The Adam stafford confirmed that Adams did not make a
statement about about the Armenian genocide.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Adams did not make such a statement. New York, not
the Yerevan of America.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
So she just straight up took money from the Turkish
government genocide denial for them.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Yeah so that's great. That that's incredible stuff to be fair.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
That is that is the mainstay of current American politics.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
Oh yeah yeah, and it's the best fundate of all
genocide denials.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
Yes, yes, Well this erg Adam's guy doesn't seem like
a doesn't seem too good. It is just fascinating to
me that out of all the cities, New York is
just the one city that you cannot have a normal mayor. Yeah,
just like every single mayor is is weird and fucked
up in like a different way.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Like it's just impossible. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
There was like an onion onion headline on Time that was, yeah,
it's like the mayor de Blasio like, well, well well
it's it's not so easy to have a not fucked
up mayor or something.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah. I think the exact line was, well, well, not
so easy to find a mayor doesn't suck ship down.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
The Erroganta was one hits so much harder because he's
like the law and order mayor, Like he's like you know,
like like former cop, blah blah blah. He's he's the
one making New York worse through all of like the
fucked up police stuff. Meanwhile, he's just been doing like
major crimes and having his house rated by the FBI
like every other month, also having like his friend's house
(37:38):
is rated by the FBI. Having was it like a
police chief or a police commissioner who was just rated.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
Yeah, and then the interim police commissioner they put in
often the first world.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
Yeah it's wild stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Yeah, we got to talk about his phone password before
we finish. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
So the why I want to close on is like
before he goes under, like all of his staffers are
getting visited by the FBI, and hey, you could tell
all cops and are dumb ast shit because they all
they all agreed to talk to the FBI and like
lied to this, and then we're trying to like coordinate
destroying the messages which the FBI got all the data from.
On October sixth, twenty twenty three, FBI agents executed a
(38:16):
search warrant for the electronic devices used by Eric Adams,
a defendants. So Adams was carrying several electronic devices, including
two cell phones, he was not carrying his personal cell phone,
which is a device he used to communicate about the
conduct described in this indictment. When Adams produced his personal
cell phone the next day in response to a subpoena,
it was locked, such as the device required a password
to open. Adams claimed that after he learned the investigation
(38:40):
into his contact he learned about the investigation, he changed
the passwords the day before and increased the complexity of
his password from four to six digits. Adams had done this,
he claimed to prevent members of his staff from inrittently
or intentionally deleting the contents of his phone. According to Adams,
he wished to preserve the context of its phone due
(39:00):
to the investigation. But Adams further claimed he'd forgotten the password.
He just said, was unable to provide the NBA with
the password that can unlock.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
The phone if they tried his birthday.
Speaker 4 (39:10):
It's the funniest argument. Yeah yeah, they like, no, no, no,
I changed. I changed the password so that the information
was safe and wouldn't be deleted. Also, I forgot the password.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Okay, so like presumably this is encrypted, right, but like
I cannot, Like, what the fuck is the FBI doing that.
They can't just break into this phone, like, I mean,
some phones are hard to break into, like it it is,
it is true.
Speaker 5 (39:32):
Yeah, have struggled with iPhones for what Yes, but this
is but this is Eric Adams. Yeah yeah, I mean yeah,
it might be zero zero zero zero, like they ought
to give it the elk on.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
It's dry to be honest.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Yeah, Like they've got to have some fucking like spook
from the NSA that they can illegally send his phone
over to.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
Like I'm sure they've tried Celebright. I'm sure they've tried
a whole bunch of stuff. It just doesn't always work.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yeah, Like I don't know, it makes you feel wildly
better about phone security. Oh the way, this is a
message about this public safety announcement. If you use a
face print or a fingerprint to lock your phone, the
cops can just use your face or your fingerprint to
a block it, or they can get it with a warrant.
But if it's like an actual number, like they can't
put a gun to your head and say open it,
(40:16):
which is the way that this would normally sort of work. Yeah,
so yeah, basic security thing. So in all, Adams is
being charged with simultaneously conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal
program bribery, and to receive camphree and contributions by foreign national.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
There's a kind of wire fraud.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
There's another count of solicitation of a contribution by foreign national.
There's subsequently, the fourth count is the same as a
third count. It's it's solicitation of a contribution by four
national and the fifth count is bribery. So he's like
probably going down, going down.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
He sounds pretty fucked.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
I mean, it has been interesting how much the federal
government has been her cracking down on foreign influence before
the selection, both with like tenant media, like a Russian
foreign influence stuff like this. There's been like some of
like Jimmy Dore or like orbiters that have I know,
have have been getting looked into by the FEDS for
like Russian foreign influence.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Dude.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
And this is not a show where we regularly praise
the actions of the fedral government. But it's always funny
to see my enemies having a hard time. And I'm pray,
I'm praying for that. Jackson Hinkle one which is yeah, yeah,
because it's so it's so obvious, You're so obvious that
he's he's absolutely getting paid by some by some forty government.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Yeah, I wonder which one this one is air to
one versus the FBI, which I'm just like just chomping
down popcorn and clapping like a seal watching rifles.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
Yes, yes, destroy each other no matter what happens. I'm
okay with it.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 5 (41:45):
I will repeat my position here at the end of
the show that I am prepared to vote for Joe
Biden on the condition that he immediately begins trading Eric
Adams for Abdul Julan, who does not belong to jail
Unlike Eric Adams. It'sohulan week this week, and so yeah,
he shouldn't be in prison.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Let him out. How do you feel about your mayor, Joey?
Speaker 3 (42:06):
You know, it sounds like he's he's working on some ship.
He's got to figure out if he really wants you know.
I see. This is the thing too, is it's like,
do I want to be like, Wow, congrats to the
FBI on this investigation. No. That being said, it is
really funny to see this all go down. I think
(42:28):
also just the amount of bullshit that he has done
while he's in office. But both legally and over the
table and under the table, and it's kind of funny
to see like this meet the thing that takes him
down yet other one of my favorite tweets about all
this with somebody who was like, I'm sure Eric Adams
all of a sudden, it's going to be uh really
pro a prison reform all of a sudden, but I
(42:51):
I hope so, you know, that would be a crazy It's.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Like an abolitionist.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
I'm getting flashbacks person abolition arts. I'm getting flashbacks when
a when a oh god, that's the same to Blasio.
Uh the governor, the governor, Oh my god, former governor,
like what he was having all of this shit come
out and like the last thing he did in office
was the legalized weed, and it was like such a
like last ditch, Like fine, here, you guys go like
(43:18):
like are we going to get something like that? Are
we gonna get? Well? I guess he tried with the
trash cans and people rejected that. But it's been an experience.
I hope for the sake of the city that uh,
you know, he faces consequences for this and it's never
back in New York politics. But I guess we'll see
(43:39):
what happens.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
No, I'm not going to cheer on the FBI, but
but I am pro cop on cop of violence.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
That's true, and that's true, and that's all this is.
That's that's all this is. So that's fine.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
I'm pro irony. I'm pro like like you're getting got
by the same like people you're bros.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
I am interested in what the next New York mayoral
election will look like.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
We're bringing in Laurie Lightfoot, let's go on hat.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
And the small possibility that, depending on how this next
election goes, we could have a Trump versus Clinton mayoral
race in New York. I would love to watch.
Speaker 5 (44:20):
Maybe Hillary Clinton will finally make her film about the
Syrian democratic forces she's been promising to make for years.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
I want to close on a kind of slightly more
serious struggles are connected note, because the thing about Eric
Adams is that he was the guy who was brought
in black cop like very specifically brought in and his
thing was basically to contain the twenty twenty uprising, right.
He was a guy whose thing was we're bringing in
the kind of revolution, We're stomping all of this stuff out,
like all of the sort of like gains of anti
(44:52):
police stuff that you'd made, all of the sort of
ideological games been made. We're going to wipe all that out.
And I think it is really significant that the government
who is funding him is a Turkish government because if
you look at the last cycle, right when so Eric
Adams is starting to do this in twenty fourteen twenty fifteen,
what's what's happening in Turkey in that time is that
Turkey have been one of the big sites of huge uprisings.
(45:13):
In twenty thirteen they have one of the biggest, like
of that cycle of protests. So twenty thirteen is the
second of the of the waves from like the Occupy
twenty eleven waves, Right, there's a big wave in twenty eleven,
and then twenty thirteen to second one, one of the
biggest one is in Turkey. And Turkey's eventual solution to
this is basically just the wholesale slaughter of the Curtish
revolution that was happening. And you know, literally in twenty
(45:36):
fourteen at the same time twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, at
the same time as the Michael Brown uprising is going on,
and then Baltimore goes up right at the same time
that's happening. There's like these are just Kurdish uprisings in Turkey,
That's where all the fire bombing happens, right, These these
these things are very, very intimately connected. There's a reason
why other than just sort of cartriganous corruption stuff that
these that these forces are aligned with each other because
(45:57):
the same people behind the American prison state are also
the same people who are fucking backing this Turkish extermination
as we've been against the Kurds, and we're going to
either win our freedom together or we're going to have
a thousand more fucking grek.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
Adams is exactly yeah. And I mean I think, like
going back to what I was saying before, like the
craziest thing about all this and like this is definitely
something that I've kind of had to like step back
and be like, all right, Like I obviously am existing
within like a specific community, Like New York is a
huge city. It's the lowerest city in the US, and
(46:31):
there's lots of different smaller communities, and I was like,
I feel like everybody that I know and everybody I
interact with hates Eric Adams has like their own list
of reasons why like he has done X Y Z
thing and they're like whether it's like my friends that
are teachers or like work for or just use public
libraries that he has like really decided to attack and
(46:53):
like defund for various reasons, or like friends that have
had to deal with like the prison system or whatever.
Or last year, I'd been working on an investigative show
that was looking into a lot of the the situation
at Rikers, and you know, Rikers is supposed to be
closed in twenty twenty seven at a RK. Adams has
really tried to push back against that, despite the fact
(47:15):
that it's like there's a federal invested investigation into the
situation there and it's not like the conditions are not good.
It is an unpopular solution, you know, like most New
Yorkers agree that there needs to be some other alternative
than Rikers and just sending people to like literally an island.
That being said, like he won the election. He won
(47:35):
his mayoral election it which sort of like surprising. He
was kind of the underdog. There were other candidates that
I think people had kind of been expecting to win,
and yeah, he was the law and order guy. He
was coming in is supposed to be this like alternative
to like the twenty twenty uprising to what was seen
as this like chaos, And again, yeah, it's the irony
(47:56):
of him getting got by its own system, getting got
by the fact that like he just keeps doing crimes.
He loves doing crimes, his favorite thing. And then at
the same time, it's like he's caused all this damage
to like individual like specific programs in the city, specific
systems that were really helping people. He has spread like
(48:16):
misinformation about migrants that have been in New York. He
has been like there's just a laundry list of things
that he has done that has been like insanely harmful
for like various reasons. And you know what, if this
is going to be the thing that's going to go
down at the end of the day, this is Sabrina
Carpenter apparently that also those of you who don't know,
(48:37):
the Sabrina Carpenter Feather music video apparently was a big
part of the Eric Adams indictment from kind of the
more local side involving the church that she was filming
at and the I'm not sure what his official position is,
but like the priest who had kind of allowed her
to come in and film, and then it ended up
that he was demoted because if you've listened to a
(48:58):
Sabrina Carpenter song, you can see why the Catholic Church
might not be super excited about that.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
And then he.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
Decided to cooperate with the investigation since the church wasn't
super happy with him. This whole thing is just there's something.
It's like, there's so many aspects of this that are
so crazy. If this is gonna be gonna get them. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Yeah, So someone's gonna do like a thirty part podcast
series about this something I'm gonna listen to every single
and there's.
Speaker 3 (49:26):
Gonna be so much more stuff that's gonna come out.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
That's yeah.
Speaker 4 (49:30):
Speaking of podcasts, Joey, do you want to plug your
work for sure?
Speaker 2 (49:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
So I'm right now producing a show called but We Loved,
which is on Iheart's Network. It's part of our Unspoken Network,
which is our LGBTQ plus kind of focus shows, and
you can find that on Spotify, Apple Music, iHeartMedia, app whatever,
all the places. I also previously had worked on a
show called Afterlives. If you are interested in learning more
(49:56):
about wrikers and particularly some of the policy that you know,
Eric Adams himself has worked to either stop from being
effective or stop from making the reforms it's supposed to
be happening. Regards to the whole Wriker situation, you should
check out that show. Yeah, that's That's where I'm at.
You can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram at
(50:19):
pat not Pratt. That's p A T T n O
T p R A T T. People get my last.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Name wrong a lot, we'll put them in the description. Yeah, yeah, Joey,
thank you for coming on.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
And fuck I hope, I hope, I hope we all
get rid of our fucking Beyers because Jesus Christ, oh God.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
Yah Future the Democratic Party, Lory Light put Eric Adams
twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
Let's go get me.
Speaker 6 (50:47):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 6 (51:00):
You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here
listed directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
Show Links
AboutPopular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
Today’s Latest News In 4 Minutes. Updated Hourly.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.