Turkish Delight
Plus: How the Trump assassination attempt happened, a word from Christopher Moltisanti, and more...
Robocop mayor may be dunzo: Mayor Eric Adams was just indicted in a federal corruption investigation, with charges most likely related to his campaign conspiring with the government of Turkey to receive illegal donations. (The indictment remains sealed, so it is not yet clear what he has been charged with, but theories are swirling.)
"Sources who are familiar with the matter told THE CITY that Adams is being charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent for taking actions in his official capacity after receiving donations from foreign sources."https://t.co/v7A4TIE12e
— Jerry Dunleavy IV ???????? (@JerryDunleavy) September 26, 2024
Adams thus notches a first: first sitting New York City mayor to be rung up on criminal charges. He technically does not need to resign, but the governor may remove him from office if he's charged with a crime. If he steps down, the public advocate, Jumaane Williams, would become the acting mayor and a special election would be called to find a replacement.
New York has seen mayors embroiled in corruption investigations before: Jimmy Walker in 1932 and Bill O'Dwyer in 1950 both experienced similar situations to Adams and quickly resigned, though their situations were different in that neither was charged while in office. (Ahem.)
"I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target—and a target I became," said Adams in response. "If I am charged, I am innocent, and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit."
Per The New York Times, the indictment "grew out of an investigation by the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors in Manhattan that began in 2021 and was focused at least in part on the possible foreign donations, and on whether Mr. Adams pressured officials in the Fire Department to sign off on the opening of a new high-rise consulate building for the Turkish government despite safety concerns." But it's not just ties to Turkey that investigators are worried about: In recent weeks, they've broadened the scope of the investigation to include Adams' ties to Israel, China, Qatar, South Korea, and Uzbekistan.
Since he was elected, Adams has had a bit of a target on his back. Following a long career in NYPD and coziness with police unions, Adams inherited a struggling New York reeling from the pandemic and a massive influx of immigrants looking for (and receiving) welfare services on taxpayers' dime. Come June, he may well be primaried—four folks within his own party are looking to dethrone him—but his tenure as both mayor and Brooklyn borough president have been marked by small but frequent corruption scandals. This one is the most significant yet, with the potential to land Adams in quite serious trouble (unless…).
The Secret Service's many failures: A Senate panel this week found that the Secret Service's failures at the July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, at which Donald Trump was shot by an assassin, were "foreseeable" and "preventable."
"Investigators found that there was no clear chain of command among the Secret Service and other security agencies and no plan for coverage of the building where the shooter climbed up to fire the shots," reports the Associated Press, based on the panel's interim joint report (full text here). "Officials were operating on multiple, separate radio channels, leading to missed communications, and an inexperienced drone operator was stuck on a help line after his equipment wasn't working correctly."
A few nuggets from the report that further highlight the agency's near-deadly incompetence: "Shortly before shots were fired, a USSS counter sniper saw local law enforcement running toward the AGR building with their guns drawn, but he did not alert former President Trump's protective detail to remove him from the stage. The USSS counter sniper told the Committee that while seeing officers with their guns drawn 'elevated' the threat level, the thought to notify someone to get Trump off the stage 'did not cross [his] mind.'"
Also: "USSS personnel were notified of a suspicious person with a rangefinder around the AGR building approximately 27 minutes before the shooting." However, "the USSS Lead Advance Agent, Site Agent, and Site Counterpart all told the Committee they did not receive this information and therefore did not know local law enforcement had identified a suspicious person with a rangefinder—and that those local officers later lost track of this individual—until after shots were fired."
Not to mention: "There were two separate communications centers at the July 13 rally—one run by USSS and one by local law enforcement. The posts were anywhere from 120 to 300 yards apart from each other and the primary means of communication between the posts was by cell phone. Local law enforcement and USSS operated on separate radio channels. All of the local channels were recorded on July 13, but USSS radio transmissions were not."
Kind of wild that in the two years leading up to this assassination attempt, top Secret Service officials repeatedly rebuffed requests for more resources and a larger detail. Of course, it's not clear that more is the answer, if the agency is plagued by such incompetence, but you would think Trump's security would be taken seriously when he's spent the better part of the last eight years being called an existential threat to American democracy. It is not shocking that some people want to take him out, and the Secret Service should competently protect his life, as that is the thing with which they have been tasked.
Scenes from New York: That's a lot of New York up there, so I offer you a meme as palate cleanser.
They arrested the Mayor, T. Just for doin' regular crimes. It's like nothin's sacred no more. pic.twitter.com/fI3NqCuIcm
— Christopher Moltisanti Weighs In On Current Events (@MoltisantiThots) September 26, 2024
QUICK HITS
- The education department under Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz—who Kamala Harris picked as her running mate—appointed Brian Lozenski to write the state's "implementation framework" (curriculum) for its new ethnic studies standards. Here's a clip of Lozenski, and here's a transcript of him saying quite clearly what he believes: "The first tenet of critical race theory is that the United States as constructed is irreversibly racist. So if the nation-state as constructed is irreversibly racist, then it must be done with, it must be overthrown, right. And so we can't be like, 'Oh no, critical race theory is just about telling our stories and divers[ity].' It's not about that. It's about overthrow. It's insurgent.…You can't be a critical race theorist and be pro-U.S. OK, it is an anti-state theory that says the United States needs to be deconstructed, period.…And that's why I'm a critical race theorist." (Then he laughs.)
- Disturbing trends out of Los Angeles County which mirror those in New York:
The number of young children in LA County has fallen by 14% since 2020. Young families don't have a path to homeownership here. People say they don't want their communities to change—but by not building, we're ushering in much darker change. pic.twitter.com/VIrV5dUzVN
— M. Nolan Gray (@mnolangray) September 25, 2024
- Kamala Harris' campaign strategy is mighty odd given that Walz was a nonobvious pick (especially compared with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who could've helped her snag a key swing state) who is now…not really being used much.
Flip side of this: Walz has been more bubbled than I'd expected, given how important his good interview skills were to his veepstakes rise. Vance is a Jeep that's gone offroad and crashed into some stuff, Walz is a vintage Harvester that's never out of the garage. https://t.co/3Ub6Oh5eKj
— David Weigel (@daveweigel) September 25, 2024
- JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon talks immigration, and ends up saying what an awful lot of Americans are thinking. "We need more merit-based immigration, we need more seasonal immigration," he says, going on to cite the importance of DACA and a pathway to citizenship, and talking about how now that NYC has been flooded with migrants (being funded by our taxpayer dollars), liberals are finally waking up to the idea that the current influx is both unsustainable and unfair.
