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Brian Lehrer: This is Special Coverage on WNYC of the criminal indictment of Mayor Eric Adams. Good morning, everyone. I'm Brian Lehrer. The indictment has not been officially announced yet by the us attorney's office in Manhattan, but multiple news organizations are reporting that there is a sealed indictment and that an official announcement could come today, probably this morning, maybe very soon.

Mayor Adams himself seems to have confirmed that this is real because he released a two-and-a-half-minute video defending himself and basically accusing his accusers of targeting him for political reasons. We will get some basic facts on the table here first, and then we will play the mayor's full video, the audio of it, obviously, for you, so you can hear his initial line of defense in full for yourself. Joining us first is WNYC senior political reporter Brigid Bergin. Good morning, Brigid.

Brigid Bergin: Good morning, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: First of all, how surprised or even shocked are you by this? There's been all this investigation news swirling around the mayor for months and months. His phone was seized back in November. His chief counsel resigned suddenly a couple of weekends ago, the chancellor of the school system, the police commissioner. Yet, somehow when this news started breaking last night that the mayor himself had been indicted, I was still like, "Wait, what? Really?"

Brigid Bergin: It is a stunning development. As you said, these investigations have been going on for the better part of a year, and just recently, it has felt like the volume just got jacked way up. The month of September has been astounding. When you think back to how it started the first week of the year, three of the mayor's closest advisors, two deputy mayors, city schools chancellor having their phones seized by the FBI, the city's police commissioner having his phone seized, then stepping down, the mayor's counsel, Lisa Zornberg, announcing that she was resigning at eleven o'clock on a Saturday night.

You could just feel it all building. Yet, as you said, you know, hearing the news that everything has come to a point and that an actual indictment was coming down, yes, it is stunning because this is history-making. We have not seen a mayor in New York City's modern history who has been indicted facing criminal charges while in office. This is a stunning and historic day.

Brian Lehrer: To be clear, anyone, including the mayor of New York City, is innocent until proven guilty.

Brigid Bergin: Absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: The indictment has not yet been unsealed. You do not know what he was indicted for, correct?

Brigid Bergin: That's correct. We don't know any of the specific charges. We do know some of the details about things that the mayor and people in his orbit have been investigated for over the course of the year. About a year ago, The New York Times reported that the FBI was investigating whether the mayor conspired with the Turkish government to funnel illegal foreign donations to his campaign committee in exchange for favors from his administration.

About the same time, the Turkish government was building a new high-rise consulate in Manhattan. It is quite an opulent building, but they were having some issues with fire safety inspection. Again, this may be connected to it. We're going to know a lot more when that indictment becomes a public document. This is part of what investigators have been looking at over the course of the year.

There have been other issues related to the mayor's campaign and other people connected to that campaign that have been in the news. Again, is that part of what the mayor is being charged with? A lot more that we will be looking for as the day wears on.

Brian Lehrer: Well, The Daily News cites a source who says the indictment involves allegations that pertain to his interactions with foreign governments. They say foreign governments, plural. It also says three sources familiar with the matter said other individuals are expected to be named as defendants as well. Do you know, or do you have a sense of, would those individuals be people in the mayor's campaign or the mayor's actual administration? Any way to even speculate about that?

Brigid Bergin: Well, what we can talk about is what we know, what happened just about a year ago. That is, the FBI raided the home of the mayor's top campaign fundraiser, a woman by the name of Brianna Suggs. On that same day, the FBI also conducted raids on Rana Abbasova. She was an aide to Mayor Adams, who worked as a liaison to the Turkish community. Another man by the name of Cenk Okal. He was an ex-Turkish Airlines executive who had served on Mayor Adams's transition team.

Those are some of the people who we know the FBI has already been investigating. In addition to that, another woman by the name of Winnie Greco, who served as an aide to Mayor Adams, had been conducting fundraising within the Chinese community. She is someone else who we know that the authorities have been investigating. Her homes in the Bronx were raided earlier this year. There are really a cast of different characters who may be connected to this soon-to-be unsealed indictment.

Brian Lehrer: Well, let's get to that kind of preemptive defense of himself by Mayor Adams in a video. I say preemptive because the indictment has not been unsealed and announced to the public yet. That could come any time. Brigid, do you want to set this up for us in any way before we play the two-and-a-half-minute video?

Brigid Bergin: Yes, I think you say a couple of really important things when you're introducing this, Brian, which is, this is a preemptive defense and so in it, you hear language from the mayor indicating that he doesn't even know himself what he's being charged with. He qualifies what he's saying is, "If I am charged."

He also makes what I think people will be talking a lot about a very interesting leap, trying to connect whatever charges are forthcoming to his plea to the federal government for more support during the ongoing migrant crisis, which would suggest that he's trying to say this is a politically motivated investigation. I think we're very far from seeing any evidence to substantiate that. That is part of the narrative that he is trying to use in this preemptive defense.

Brian Lehrer: Just one follow-up to something you just said before we play the video that the mayor claims that he himself doesn't know if he's being indicted. Maybe I need to ask this of one of the lawyer guests we have coming up a little later. Would that be usual, or would that ever happen? If that indictment is out there but sealed and it's going to be unsealed for the general public this morning? Would the person who's being indicted not know it yet on the night before?

Brigid Bergin: I think that is something we'll have to confirm with a lawyer. One of the things we do know is that there were federal investigators who were at Gracie Mansion as late as just this morning. An attorney for the mayor issued a statement basically saying, arguing that it was a spectacle, saying that what they came to do was to seize the mayor's phone, something that the mayor would have turned in. To be clear, the mayor has had his electronic devices seized by federal investigators already, again, just about a year ago.

At this point, they are saying that he doesn't know the specifics of these charges. I think a lawyer can tell us better whether that is as rare as we might think it is.

Brian Lehrer: You referred to one of the developments just this morning, which is that federal agents have now searched Gracie Mansion, the mayor's official residence. It's breaking on that level as well. All right, here's the two-and-a-half-minute video that Mayor Adams released in anticipation of unsealing this indictment last night.

Mayor Eric Adams: My fellow New Yorkers, it is now my belief that the federal government intends to charge me with crimes. If so, these charges will be entirely false, based on lies, but they would not be surprising. I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, that I would be a target, and a target I became.

For months, leaks and rumors have been aimed at me in an attempt to undermine my credibility and paint me as guilty. Just this past week, they searched the home of our new police commissioner, looking for documents from 20 years ago, just one week after he joined my administration. Enough. I will fight these injustices with every ounce of my strength and my spirit.

If I'm charged, I know I am innocent. I will request an immediate trial so the New Yorkers can hear the truth. New Yorkers know my story. They know where I come from. I have been fighting injustice my entire life. That fight has continued as your mayor. Despite our pleas, when the federal government did nothing as its broken immigration policies overloaded our shelter system with no relief, I put the people of New York before party and politics.

Now, if I am charged, many may say I should resign because I cannot manage the city while fighting the case. I can also understand how every day New Yorkers would be concerned that I cannot do my job while I face accusations. I have been facing these lies for months since I began to speak out for all of you and their investigation started. Yet the city has continued to improve.

Make no mistake, you elected me to lead this city, and lead it I will. I humbly ask for your prayers and your patience as we see this through. God bless you, and God bless the city of New York. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Mayor Eric Adams. The full two-and-a-half-minute video he released last night in anticipation of being indicted on some kind of corruption charges. This morning we're waiting for an announcement in a news conference from the US Attorney, Damian Williams, or somebody from his office.

Listeners, your reactions are going to be part of the Special Coverage hour. Your reactions to Mayor Adams being indicted or any questions you have. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. One question for you, listeners. The mayor said in that tape that he's not resigning. It is true that he's not obligated to under the law even if he's indicted. Governor Hochul apparently has the power to remove him.

In your opinion, from what you know so far, or depending on what this indictment actually is, should she exercise that power? Or at what point should she exercise that power? In your opinion, when does it become too difficult for the mayor to run the city effectively, even as he has the right to declare his innocence and fight any charges that are coming down? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call us or text us on this hour of Special Coverage this morning to say or ask anything else as well that's related. 212-433-9692.

Our senior political reporter Brigid Bergin, still with us for a few more minutes. Then we're going to talk to Christine Quinn, the former New York City Council speaker. We're going to talk to legal analyst Elie Honig a little later in the hour. They, of course, will also take your calls. Brigid, what's the timing on this today, as far as you can tell? I wish they wouldn't keep it such a mystery. Is the US attorney going to say, "Okay, reporters in five minutes, I'm holding this announcement." They could just tell us when this is going to happen.

Brigid Bergin: I do think once they are prepared to lay out their case, so to speak, that they're going to give people enough time to be there because there has been a lot of work leading up to this moment and they certainly want people to hear what it has culminated in. I think mid-morning is often the time that these types of press conferences take place.

You and I have in the past talked about many other corruption press conferences out of the US attorney's office. Oftentimes it's around the eleven o'clock hour, 11:30. That would not surprise me if there's an announcement asking folks to come to lower Manhattan to the courthouse for a press conference at that time. I think it's fair to expect that they will lay it out. They will tell the story of what all of this investigatory work has led to at this point.

As you said, and it's really important to stress, the mayor is innocent until proven guilty. There is a legal-- legal steps will need to take place, a trial potentially. The mayor has said in his statement there that he would be seeking a speedy trial. There's a lot more to come from both sides in this case.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, so many corruption charges have ended in acquittals in recent years or been thrown out on appeal. We'll talk to Elie Honig about that, CNN legal analyst, when he joins us in a little bit. For you, before you go, and we bring on Christine Quinn as our senior political reporter, what are the changing politics of this as of this morning? We only had a few people and those who tend to be political, if not enemies, severe critics of the mayor anyway, calling for his resignation. So far, Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, AOC, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one or two others. What's changed in the last 12 hours?

Brigid Bergin: Absolutely, Brian. Two points, one just on the absolutely historic nature of this day. I covered the de Blasio administration very closely. That administration was also facing both state and federal investigations. At one point, both the district attorney's office and the US attorney's office released memos on the same day, basically saying that, yes, this administration had not necessarily followed the letter of the law, but that they were not bringing charges.

It was a stunning day in its own right, but also showed how high the bar is to bring a case against a sitting elected official. That's the one point. On the political point, absolutely, things have changed just so dramatically in the last 24 hours. Even before this indictment was announced, we saw this kind of gathering storm of elected officials calling for the mayor's resignation. You mentioned Councilmember TTiffany Cabán, who was on the show earlier this week.

Well, the congresswoman who represents her district, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also issued a statement yesterday calling for the mayor to resign, essentially saying that these distractions, the vacancies from the administration are just going to make it too difficult to do the work of leading the city. On top of that, you have this growing field of potential candidates who are seeking to replace him in the city's top job next year.

City Comptroller Brad Lander, former Comptroller Scott Stringer, State Senator Zellnor Myrie, State Senator Jessica Ramos. Their statements and what they say and how they respond to the news that we learn more about today will be extremely telling. We know that they have been very critical of the investigations so far, but obviously, they have something that they're looking towards, which is how to make the most of it for their political gain next year.

Brian Lehrer: You know what? Why don't you stay with us and take a couple of the first calls that are coming in before we go to Christine Quinn? We'll take one from the Bronx and one from Queens. Renee in the Bronx, you're on WNYC with Brigid Bergin on our special coverage of the indictment of Mayor Adams. Hi, Renee.

Renee: Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I just really had a question. There's been talk about the different commissioners and high-level officials who have resigned, but I don't hear much about the fact that the fire commissioner resigned rather abruptly over the summer. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: I think I get the question. That's not a resignation that we've heard connected to the investigations, the resignation of Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh.

Brigid Bergin: It's a great point and it's true there's been kind of a gap in time between when she left her position and then we saw this kind of tidal wave of people leaving city hall in the most recent weeks. We do know that part of what has been reportedly investigated are related to potential expedited fire inspections, that we saw two fire chiefs who were recently indicted. Again, I think that it's a fair question for the listener to raise and something that people will probably have more to say about as we learn more about what is actually in the content of this indictment.

Brian Lehrer: Jacqueline in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jacqueline.

Jacqueline: Hi. My name is Jacqueline. I'm from South Jamaica, Queens. We have been hit hard with the migrant crisis, and my biggest fear is the focus of our day-to-day issues. Yes, the mayor has been indicted, but self-preservation is real. We still have needs here. My biggest fear is we're losing so much people. Where do our local council people stand?

This morning the first thing I did was ask. We need to have an address to our community because we're leaning on you for a sense of stability. When things like this happen, vulnerable communities, we tend to be hit with so much misinformation that by the time it's time for us to make proper decisions, we're lost. For me--

Brian Lehrer: Jacqueline, for that stability that you're looking for, do you have a gut reaction as of this point as to whether it's better for addressing the issues in your community that you raise, that the mayor stay in office or that he walk away and let Jumaane Williams, the public advocate, that's the line of succession, the public advocate would take over, step in?

Jacqueline: I believe it's important for somebody to step in because we can't ignore the fact that you're a human. You still have to take care of you. We need a leader at this time.

Brian Lehrer: Jacqueline--

Jacqueline: Self-preservation is real.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for your call. Well, a couple of interesting calls there, and certainly that one which could have come from so many different New Yorkers with so many different concerns about their neighborhoods that, "Hey, we need to take care of business. Can we still do this?"

Brigid Bergin: Absolutely. I think that's something that'll be interesting to hear if that becomes-- a lot of these types of corruption investigations sometimes don't quite penetrate to the average voter. This obviously has risen to a new historic level. What we do know is true, though, is that there are thousands of city workers and commissioners who are going to continue. Yes, they may be slightly distracted by this news today, but they are going to go and pick up their garbage, and respond to fires, and show up when they are called. That's the work of city workers.

What is important is that there is someone who is at the head of city hall ensuring that they have leadership to deal with the different crises like the caller raised. It'll be increasingly difficult, given how hard it is to fight an investigation like this for the mayor to do it. I think we'll continue to hear more people calling for him to step aside.

Brian Lehrer: WNYC senior political reporter Bridgid Bergin. We'll obviously be hearing from you throughout the day. Thanks for coming on now.

Brigid Bergin: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: This is Special Coverage of the indictment of Mayor Eric Adams. We continue in a minute.

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Brian Lehrer: This is Special Coverage on WNYC of the criminal indictment of Mayor Eric Adams. Good morning again, everyone. I'm Brian Lehrer. If you're just joining us, the indictment has not been unsealed yet. We are expecting that sometime this morning. We don't yet know what the mayor is being indicted for, but multiple news organizations are reporting that he has been indicted, that there will be an announcement today.

The mayor himself responded to the likelihood of this, the apparent fact of this in a two-and-a-half-minute video defending himself last night that we played a little while ago. We'll get a quick take now from Christine Quinn, the former New York City Council speaker, currently president and CEO of Win, the largest provider of shelter supportive services for homeless families in New York City. Chris Quinn, thank you for joining us today. Welcome back to WNYC.

Christine Quinn: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: I could ask you a really technical question, but I'll start by asking you, have you ever?

Christine Quinn: No. Never. Never, never, never. If you wrote this in a movie script, people would say, we can't make it a movie because it's just too insane, too out there. It's a really sad day for New York to have had your mayor, whatever ends up happening, be indicted while they're serving and to have such a cloud over the administration. As your caller indicated, New Yorkers rely on government. They rely on the mayor to keep the schools open, to keep the firehouses open, to take care of crises that come up like the migrant crisis, and to have that all called into question, it's hard for New Yorkers to take a deep breath and feel like someone's got their back.

Brian Lehrer: Well, you work in the shelter system for homeless families in particular. You heard the caller from Southeast Queens concerned about the effects of the migrant crisis in her neighborhood. Somebody needs to be in charge managing all of that. She thinks probably the mayor can't do both things well enough. You heard in the mayor's defense video that he's suggesting, at least, that his bucking the administration, the Biden administration, on part of his migrant policy might have made him a target. How do you react to either of those things?

Christine Quinn: Well, first of all, look, I think that the caller is right. I've long said that the migrant crisis has been mishandled and that if we had prioritized permanent housing for the migrants to help them become fully integrated New Yorkers, neighborhoods wouldn't feel the kind of being overwhelmed that that caller called about. On the second point, serously--

Brian Lehrer: Can I jump in on that? Because I think the mayor would say, "Are you kidding? We don't have enough permanent housing for all the New Yorkers who are already here. The housing shortage is one of our biggest ongoing issues. How are we going to build permanent housing instantly for 100,000 plus migrants coming all at once?"

Christine Quinn: Well, we're not going to build it instantly. That's impossible. We could take housing vouchers, make them available to the undocumented and every month on month for the past year or so, the amount of apartments rented with housing vouchers has gone up. The system, not to get too wonky of how the housing vouchers are used, has been very problematic and slowed down people getting housing historically. It's nothing fixed yet, but the Department of Homeless Services commissioner has done a lot to make it better. We do have some elasticity in the number of units that we can move people into. If we did that, we at Win with the Immigration Coalition calculated we could save $3 billion on how much money we're spending as it relates to the migrant crisis.

Let's go to the Joe Biden point, really? The man just had to step down as running for reelection. He had a debate that's been called the worst debate in history. Do we really think while they were running for reelection and while they were deciding to step down, they were sitting around talking about Eric Adams and whether they were annoyed at him? It's just ridiculous.

Brian Lehrer: We are getting some support for that point of view from at least one listener. In a text message, listener writes, "It almost seems more likely like Mayor Adams has been the subject of the investigations because he chose to speak out against immigration problems facing our city." Here's Hussein and Queens, who might hold a similar point of view. I'm not sure. Hussein, you're on WNYC. Hello, thank you for calling in.

Hussein: Good morning, Ryan. Thank you for taking my call. I just want to express on the Southeast Queens also I'm a broker, real estate broker. Addressing the issue, we can't put the cart before the horse. The indictment hasn't even come down yet and we're already saying he should jump off the ship. All he's saying is give him a chance to defend himself as we have a felon running for president that nobody's complaining about, nobody's stopped him from doing that.

Brian Lehrer: A few people are complaining, but I get your point.

Christine Quinn: [unintelligible 00:27:25]

Hussein: Yes, but he's still there. He's still there. Give the man an opportunity to at least hear what he's being indicted for before everybody's talking about jumping the ship, how bad of a job he's doing. De Blasio administration was investigated. Somebody said it wasn't enough to indict and he didn't get indicted. We're giving Mayor Adams no opportunity. We're not-- haven't given him an opportunity to even hear the indictment.

All the people are resigning, okay, maybe they should resign. All the people are doing this, okay, but let's find out exactly what's going on with the situation before we say, "Jump ship," or that he should resign and different things like that. Give him a fair opportunity. That's all I'm saying.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Thank you very much. Call us again. Chris Quinn, for you, with your experience in government as speaker of the New York City Council and other things that you've done, do you think the mayor can fight these charges with the grace that comes to any American to declare their innocence until proven guilty, to fight these charges and continue to be effective as mayor. Whatever your politics of Eric Adams's policies are aside.

Christine Quinn: I think it would be very hard, if not impossible for the mayor to be able to-- for his own accord, successfully fight these charges, which he said he's going to do and to, again, politics aside, effectively govern as mayor. I've seen in the weeks leading up to last night, the efficiency, the responsiveness of city hall really dwindle. Now it's only going to get worse because he's got to defend himself and because of all of the additional scrutiny that's going to come on the administration both from law enforcement and from the press, as it should, but I think that makes it near impossible.

Brian Lehrer: Could you go into a little more detail about what you just said regarding seeing a slowing down of responsiveness from the administration because the mayor's preemptive defense, not just in the video, but as these investigations have been going on week after week, we cover his news conference every Tuesday, and he always leads with pointing to things getting done in the city to the significantly reducing crime rates, record low number of shootings in Brooklyn for a month of August just now, similar with robberies on the subway.

He'll talk to the number of recent migrants who have been gotten out of the door of the shelter system and into more private housing and employment. He says that's the first thing in his defense. The work of the city is getting done, public safety and other things. Can you be specific about the slowed responsive time that you referred to and what the evidence is for that?

Christine Quinn: Sure, and some of what you just listed is very good and deserves applause, like shootings going down. That's running as the police department, which had been set in motion. What I'm seeing is answers to policy questions that we just can't get answers to of things in my regard around homeless services that we just want to get changed and you can't get answers to.

I think that is what happens in situations like this because people understandably, as the caller said before, being a human being, you're distracted because you're focused on what you need to do.

Brian Lehrer: As a former city council speaker, and I know you got to go in a couple of minutes, what's city council's role now? Or let's say after the indictment is unsealed and people see the charges, let's assume that they are corruption charges relating to his contacts with foreign governments as people are expecting them to be something like that. Let's say it comes out like that, what's the role of city council now?

Christine Quinn: Well, the city council is the branch of government closest to New Yorkers and most central to their everyday lives. The first thing the city council needs to do is just stand up before New Yorkers, hopefully, with the help of the media, and affirm that they're there, that they're going to stay on top of government, that they're going to do even more aggressive oversight.

They're going to look at the bills that are pending and figure out which one should be passed immediately, one, to give people a sense of security, but two to address problems that have been brewing and perhaps have not been responded to. They really can be people's anchor. I have a lot of faith in Speaker Adams, and I have every confidence that she will step up and be that anchor for New Yorkers, and she will, this isn't the best description, but fill in the gap that is going to be left because of the investigation.

Brian Lehrer: Public advocate--

Christine Quinn: In the indictment. Excuse me.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Quick follow-up, then we'll let you go. Jumaane Williams, the public advocate, according to the line of succession law, would step in as mayor. Is he ready, in your opinion?

Christine Quinn: I think Jumaane is an incredibly committed elected official. The public advocate, I think, only steps in for 90 days, and he will have all of the support of the other elected officials in the city. I think he will be focused. We all know Jumaane as an advocate. I think there were pictures in the paper today of him getting arrested more than once. I also know Jumaane as--

Brian Lehrer: For a cause, not for committing a crime, right?

Christine Quinn: No, no, no. I'm sorry, Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Just to be clear.

Christine Quinn: Yes. Protest. I'm so sorry. Protest. My father tried to get out of jury duty once, saying that I was a convicted individual and they didn't buy it there. [laughs] That's what I meant here. I know Jumaane as a legislator, and he really brought big important pieces of legislation, like ones around stop and frisk forward. He was methodical in how he pushed to successfully get them passed. I have faith that if it comes to that, he'll do a good job, and I would stand ready to help him in any way I could.

Brian Lehrer: You just told me something I didn't know. He would only step in for 90 days. That means there'd be a special election, and we would have two mayoral elections next year.

Christine Quinn: Potentially. There is the latitude that if the potential special election is too close to the regularly scheduled election, you can wait for the regularly scheduled one. You don't have to do two expenditures.

Brian Lehrer: Christine Quinn, former speaker of the New York City Council and currently president and CEO of Win, the largest provider of shelter and supportive services for homeless families in New York City. Thank you for giving us some time today.

Christine Quinn: Absolutely. Take care. Bye.

Brian Lehrer: Our special coverage continues in a minute. Special Coverage of the indictment of Mayor Eric Adams with legal analyst Elie Honig. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: This is Special Coverage on WNYC of the criminal indictment of Mayor Eric Adams. Good morning again, everyone. I'm Brian Lehrer. Obviously, we're not bringing you the BBC World Service, as we usually do. In this hour, we are bringing you the Special Coverage, considering the local news. Joining us next is Eli Honig. He is senior legal analyst at CNN, a columnist for New York Magazine, a former New Jersey and federal prosecutor, and author of the book Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away with It. Elie, always good to have you on with us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Elie Honig: Hey, Brian, thanks for having me. The office that is bringing this charge is, of course, the Southern District of New York, where I also used to work. Hopefully, I can give you some firsthand insight into what we do know and importantly, what we don't know as of this moment.

Brian Lehrer: What do you know, since the public does not know what's in this sealed indictment?

Elie Honig: That's the number one thing we don't know what is in this indictment. We should find that out apparently within the next few hours when it will be reportedly unsealed. There's apparently a press conference now scheduled for 11:30 where the US Attorney, Damian Williams will walk through the charges. Let me start there.

First of all, contrary to what you may have seen on social media, this is not a case that has anything to do with the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, has nothing to do with the New York State attorney general, Letitia James. I've seen all sorts of false social media things about, "Oh, James is going after Adams." No, no, no. This is a federal case. It's brought by the Southern District of New York US Attorney's office, which is part of the United States Department of Justice.

Now, the US attorney, the man who runs that office is Damian Williams. Now, I know Damian a bit. We overlap there for maybe a year or two. He is the youngest US attorney that office has seen, certainly in recent memory, maybe ever. He's 44 years old right now. He does not fit the stereotype of the SDNY US attorney.

When you think of that position, you might think of a boisterous presence like Rudy Giuliani, who famously had that job in the '80s. You might think of some of the more media-friendly people who filled that role in recent years. James Comey, Preet Bharara, my friend and colleague, both of them had that job.

Damian Williams, if anything, he's understated. He's kept a low profile, although that profile has been rising because if you just look at the last year or so, his office has returned indictments of Sam Bankman-Fried, of Senator Bob Menendez from New Jersey just two weeks ago, of Sean Combs "Diddy" and now of Eric Adams. Again, when you see the press conference, don't expect fireworks, don't expect podium pounding. Expect a straightforward, understated summary of the case.

I know a bit about the defense lawyers here, I should say Adams is reportedly being represented by Boyd Johnson.

Brian Lehrer: Can I keep you on Damien Williams for another couple of questions?

Elie Honig: Go right ahead.

Brian Lehrer: It'll be really, really interesting to get into the defense lawyers. Maybe we should also add that he was appointed by President Biden. He's a Biden appointee, and therefore he was confirmed by the US Senate, that was back in October of 2021. More ties to the administration. I see he served as a law clerk to Merrick Garland-

Elie Honig: Merrick Garland, yes.

Brian Lehrer: -the current attorney general when Garland was a judge on the appeals court in DC. Also to Justice John Paul Stevens at the Supreme Court level. Just a little more about the background of Damian Williams in that respect, right?

Elie Honig: Yes. Yes. I think it's interesting. It's gotten some note before that he did clerk for Merrick Garland. Merrick Garland apparently supported his nomination as US attorney. Another thing, this is a little bit inside baseball. Look, being the us attorney for the SDNY is one of the most prestigious jobs in the Justice Department. Some even argue it's akin-- those of us who come from the SDNY tend to think quite highly of ourselves in the office, think it's as important as being the attorney general.

Typically that person will serve their term in the SDNY 10, 12, whatever years when they're earlier in their career, then they'll go out and do something else in the world, maybe be at a private firm or whatever, and then come back maybe a decade later. That's the typical pattern. That's not what happened with Damian Williams.

He started there, I think it was around 2012, I believe, worked his way up through the Public Corruption Bureau, I should note, and others, then he was just elevated to US attorney under the Biden administration with the blessing of Chuck Schumer, who, of course, has to sign off on the US attorneys here.He's risen to the top more quickly and in a slightly more direct manner than we usually see.

Brian Lehrer: He went to Harvard underground undergrad, law school at Yale. Has he brought other corruption cases that you know of? I don't see any high-profile ones.

Elie Honig: I don't think there's any headliners, but if I could take you back to a few years ago, six, seven years ago with the US attorney's office for the SDNY, they brought two very important New York State-level corruption cases. One was against Sheldon Silver, the democratic assembly speaker. The other was against Dean Skelos, who was the republican Senate minority, I guess, leader.

Both of those cases had an interesting history in that they were charged in 2015 or so, both resulted in convictions but then both of those convictions were vacated, not because the SDNY had done anything wrong, but there was a different case that came out of the US Supreme Court that changed the law and the standards on these type of corruption cases. As a result, the SDNY had to agree to undo the convictions, then retried both of those people, Silver and Skelos. They were both reconvicted and both ended up being sentenced to prison.

Brian Lehrer: Well, that's definitely one of the other questions I wanted to ask you as a legal analyst. Even when we know what the mayor is being indicted for later this morning, it apparently will have something to do with corruption. The last few years, maybe the last few decades, with rulings by the Supreme Court and other things, it's really hard to win corruption convictions and really hard to make them stand on appeal. What's the legal standard that you can describe to our listeners as a legal analyst?

Elie Honig: There's no question about that, Brian. If you look at the US Supreme Court and you just think, "Oh, it's always six-three. It's always conservatives versus liberals and thats--" Not so. One area where the conservatives and the liberals have united is in narrowing down the scope of corruption laws. This goes back a decade and a half.

The case I just referenced, it was based on a prosecution of the Virginia governor and the finding was basically, in order to have a corruption crime, a bribery crime, there has to be some specific official act. The official has to cast a vote a certain way or veto a piece of legislation. What happened in that case was the Virginia governor had set up meetings and done some phone calls, and the Supreme Court said, that's not enough. If that ticks you off and you want to blame the other side, it was unanimous.

At the time, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was on the same page as Justice Alito and Thomas. That was one in the Bridgegate case involving New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. The Supreme Court threw out convictions there. They narrowed the scope of corruption laws there as well. Now, we don't know what the charge will be here. We don't know if it'll be some form of bribery. We don't know if it'll be some form of what we call Hobbs Act extortion, using your official position to obtain property unlawfully.

The reporting, as you mentioned earlier, Brian, seems to be focusing on potential foreign lobbying violations, what we call FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which essentially makes it a crime to lobby, try to influence or take action in the government on behalf of a foreign nation without registering. You're allowed to lobby for a foreign country if you register. Obviously, Eric Adams is not a registered foreign lobbyists.

Those cases are notoriously difficult. I just looked at the Justice Department's own listing on the website of their recent FARA prosecutions, and the results are mixed. Usually DOJ, their listing of their cases is just a long list of conviction, conviction, conviction. Here you have dismissals, you have acquittals. They're tough cases to make. What I want to see is, is this a foreign lobbying case and/or is there some other type of charge that's included here?

Brian Lehrer: With legal analyst Elie Honig on our Special Coverage this hour of the indictment of Mayor Eric Adams. Here's our third caller this hour from the mayor's home turf of Southeast Queens, Craig in Queens, if I remember correctly from your earlier calls over the last few years, where you're from. Craig, you're on WNYC.

Craig: Good morning, Brian. I am from Southeast Queens. I'm not a big fan of the mayor, but I'm going to take a wait-and-see approach with this one. For him to advocate for the Turkish consulate, if this is what it's coming down to, that was Bob McDonald, the governor of Virginia, who took Rolex watches and lavish trips and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and they overturned his conviction.

If you saying he did something for a foreign entity? Well, once they buy a property in New York City, they become part of his constituent. If he said to the fire commission, "Hey, look at what's going on with this development." We all know he's pro-real estate I hope that this guy is not just resting the conviction on that. I hope it's something else.

You had Christine Quinn, who used to be speaker of the city council. To me, she left her job and then got a job with the city as a contractor for homeless services. To me, her, Marty Moskowitz, who-- she didn't work for the city, but she worked for the union, and now she's one of the largest people with the charter schools. You see the relationship with [unintelligible 00:45:32]--

Brian Lehrer: Oh, Eva Moskowitz.

Craig: Yes. Eva Moskowitz. Marty Moskowitz is a different guy. He's a guy, but all--

Brian Lehrer: You're raising a great point as what's corruption? What's the regular order of business? Craig, thank you very much. Keep calling us. Elie, he does raise legitimate concerns about whether this is even corruption. Again, we don't know what this is or how sweeping the charges will be. Let's say it's what Craig keyed on, which is what a lot of the media is keying on, some kind of special favor for the Turkish consulate building in New York after maybe there were some campaign donations to him in the 2021 campaign.

Maybe he got the fire department to let them jump the line or maybe even some lax inspections. I don't know if that's going to be a charge. In the scheme of corruption in the universe, that would be really small potatoes if that's all it is, right?

Elie Honig: Well, I agree, certainly with one of the first things the caller said, which is let's hold judgment here. There's a lot we don't know. This doesn't look to me like it's going to be a slam-dunk case. You're exactly right. The line between a mayor or any elected official doing his job, representing his constituents, looking out for certain interests and corruption is a very fuzzy one. One where DOJ has gotten itself in trouble in the past.

One example that comes to mind is if you think of the first prosecution of Senator Menendez from New Jersey, not the one that just concluded where he was convicted, but there was another one back in 2016 or so where he was alleged to have done corrupt favors for a donor. The evidence was unclear as to whether he was actually doing illicit favors or just advocating for certain interests, which you're allowed to do. That's what I'm going to look for-

Brian Lehrer: For a constituent.

Elie Honig: -when we see this indictment. Is it just he did things to benefit a certain organization or can they tie it to payments? Can they tie it to some more obviously illicit actions taken by the mayor?

Brian Lehrer: You wanted to talk about the mayor's defense team, and then I took you on a long, circuitous route before we got back to that. That's a good way to come out of Craig's call as well since he's talking about the mayor's right to defend himself. We've talked so much about the US attorney who's bringing the case. People don't know who the mayor's defense lawyers are, so where would you start?

Elie Honig: The two names who've been representing the mayor and who've been reported in The New York Times and elsewhere as handling this case are Boyd Johnson and Brendan McGuire, both of whom I worked with for many years. Not directly, but we were in the office at the same time at the SDNY. Boyd Johnson was the number two person in the office. He was the deputy US attorney. He rose up through the ranks. Brendan was, at one time, chief of the public corruption unit, which is now handling this case here.

Look, I know it's standard fair in these situations for people who worked with the attorneys to say, "Well, he is of the utmost integrity and a courtroom tactician," and all that, but man, trust me, these two are really, really good. It would make me nervous if I was the SDNY right now to have to go into the well against these two. They are two of the best. They are both supremely talented trial lawyers, in particular. They know how to talk to a New York jury, and they know how to build cases. If you know how to build cases, then you also know how to deconstruct them from the other side. Eric Adams has very formidable defense lawyers.

I will say, sometimes clients, defendants who have a lot of means, will hire a lawyer who's maybe a big name, but maybe not looked at as the absolute best. These two are top, top-shelf. That's a big part of the reason why I think it's important to withhold judgment and to not be necessarily writing up the certificate of conviction just yet for Eric Adams.

Brian Lehrer: We've heard some of the mayor's public-facing defense. "I'm being targeted maybe by the Biden administration because of opposition to the migrant policy or for some other reason." What's the legal defense, if you can anticipate without seeing the actual charge yet?

Elie Honig: These claims, by the way, that we're starting to hear from Eric Adams that he's been targeted to me are bogus. I don't see any basis for them. Why would he be picked on by a fellow Democrat or anybody? I know he's a big personality and all that, but I don't buy that.

I think his defense, assuming that the charges have something to do with his performance of his job as mayor, will be just that. "I was looking out for constituents. I'm aggressive in what I do. If I hear somebody's having a problem, I'm going to try to help them. This was a group I was cultivating a healthy political relationship with." That kind of thing.

What's really going to make or break that is, A, does the government, do the prosecutors have cooperating witness testimony? You can and say no, this was something more and different than that. B, do they have electronic communications, texts, emails, that kind of thing that undermine that, that show that he was either illicitly receiving money or taking steps that he understood were beyond the scope of what he would do as mayor in order to benefit certain donors, contributors or other benefactors?

Brian Lehrer: Stephen in Montclair, you're on WNYC with CNN legal analyst and New York Magazine columnist Elie Honig on her Special Coverage of the indictment of Mayor Eric Adams. Hi, Stephen.

Stephen: Hello. Thank you for taking my call. I covered the DOJ as a reporter myself for many years. One of the things I found really interesting was the typical career arc of someone there, which is usually six, seven years, you make a name for yourself, you go into private practice. What was mentioned earlier about this being an unconventional career path for the current US attorney, I wonder what you think about that reality in terms of this current indictment. Is this something that is really outside the norm?

Elie Honig: Well, that's a good question. It's outside the norm in a lot of respects. It's the first time we've ever had an indictment of the sitting mayor of New York City. Right there, I think we need to see the actual charges before we just decide. If it is a Foreign Agents Registration Act, FARA, charge, there has been a change in the way DOJ has charged FARA.

If you look back historically, there was a 50-year period or so up to 2016 when Farrow was charged under ten times. I think the number six or seven times ever in this whole country by the Justice Department. It was seen as an obscure, confusing, vague law and therefore DOJ stayed away. Since 2016, there's been an exponential uptick in the number of those charges. We've seen a few dozen in the eight years or so since 2016, but, as I said before, with very much mixed results, not the usual slate of conviction upon conviction that you see at the Justice Department.

The caller also raises an interesting point. Brings to my mind, Damian Williams is the US attorney. He was appointed by Joe Biden. It's certainly not guaranteed that he will still have that job come January. On the one hand, if Donald Trump wins the election, he's gone, as every US attorney will be. That's nothing bad that Donald Trump does. That's just every president comes in and cleans out all the US attorneys. They usually resign before the new administration arrives in anticipation of that.

Even if Kamala Harris becomes president, it's not a sure thing she will keep him on. Again, no negative reflection on Damian Williams, but when a new administration comes in, they typically will replace most or all of the US attorneys. It could well be that he gets this announcement today. He gets his name on the indictment, but some other us attorney ends up handling the actual trial of this case down the line.

Brian Lehrer: Listener asks in a text message, "Can you please ask who is paying for Eric Adams's legal defense?" Do you know that, Elie?

Elie Honig: I don't know that. I have no way to know that. I will say Boyd Johnson and Brendan McGuire are at a very expensive, top-shelf law firm, Wilmer, a great firm. They're not cheap, I can assure you of that.

Brian Lehrer: Another listener asks, "Doesn't the investigation predate the migrant issue?" I don't know the answer to that. Do you happen to speaker one?

Elie Honig: I don't know when you would date "the migrant issue" too. That's always been an issue.

Brian Lehrer: Well, let's say mid-2022, roughly.

Elie Honig: The answer then is no. As far as we know, well, the overt signs of the investigation, we don't know when they started chewing on it in-house behind closed doors. The first overt action when they went out and did search warrants on Adams's fundraiser was a year ago. It was November of 2023. That's when this first hit the public radar. Again, were they looking at Eric Adams in 2022 or 2021? We don't know for sure.

Brian Lehrer: Going back to the previous question about who's paying for Eric Adams's defense, are the taxpayers paying for it in any way?

Elie Honig: I don't know the answer to-- Well, it's not being paid with public money. I assure you that. There's no way that public money, taxpayer funds, are being used to pay for his personal legal defense. Under New York state law, whether he can use campaign money to pay for his defense team, that I just don't know the answer to.

Brian Lehrer: When we hear this news conference later this morning from the US attorney, what's the first question in your mind you're going to be listening for before we let you go?

Elie Honig: Oh, that's interesting. Well, he will certainly be asked about bail, "Will you be agreeing to bail of the mayor?" Of course, I think he will. What I would try to probe is the nature of the proof here. Look, the question I would ask is, "How confident are you in your proof?" But it's not a great journalistic question because he's going to say, "A, I'm confident, B, I'm not telling you what it is."

These press conferences don't tend to be super detailed or enlightening, but that's the biggest thing I'm looking for, Brian, when this indictment comes out. You can't always tell. For example, sometimes you'll see an indictment, they will quote a document. They will give you a quote pulled off of a recording, off of a text. That's what I'm looking for. Do they have something like that where you go, "Oh, boy, right here, tis is locked in and this is damaging."

If they don't, if it's going to come down to cooperator testimony and the legal theory is sort of wishy-washy and FARA-y Foreign Agents Registration Act-y, then I'm going to wait and see on how it plays out. This is not going to be a normal case. It's not your normal straightforward robbery charge or even a bribery charge, cash in an envelope. I think it's going to be much more complicated than that.

Brian Lehrer: Elie Honig, CNN legal analyst, New York Magazine columnist, and author of the book Untouchable: Why Powerful People Get Away with It. Thank you for hopping on with us this morning. We really appreciate it.

Elie Honig: Thanks, Brian. Great talking to you.

Brian Lehrer: Now, for those of you just joining at our regular ten o'clock Brian Lehrer Show time, we've been in Special Coverage of the indictment of Mayor Adams on corruption charges this hour. Since we've been in Special Coverage preempting the BBC, we're going to pause now for some news headlines before we dive into the regular show with more on Adams and other things as well. Stay with us. Brian Lehrer with you on WNYC as we transition from Special Coverage.

 

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