If the indictment of New York Mayor Eric Adams is true, if he did indeed pressure the city’s fire department to approve a building without inspection in exchange for free travel and campaign funds from a foreign government, then that is worrisome, and the prosecution is justified.
Unfortunately the indictment of Adams fits into a larger pattern of Democrats who have criticized President Joe Biden suddenly finding themselves on the business end of a federal prosecution. This wouldn’t be noteworthy except for the fact that the Biden Justice Department has turned a blind eye to far worse allegations against Biden and his family.
Adams is charged with five counts, including two for soliciting campaign funds from a foreign entity, one count of bribery, one count of fraud, and one count of conspiracy. Between 2016 and 2023, Adams is accused of accepting $123,000 worth of luxury travel benefits, including free flights and hotel stays from Turkish officials. These same officials also used straw donors to funnel money into Adams’s campaign, which Adams then used New York City’s generous public campaign funding laws to turn into $10 million. In exchange for the campaign donations and travel, Adams allegedly pressured the Fire Department of New York to open a Turkish consular building without a fire inspection.
Adams says he is innocent and is being targeted by the Biden administration for criticism he has leveled against Biden for his handling of the southern border. “This issue will destroy New York City,” Adams said of migrants Biden had released into the country. “The president and the White House have failed this city,” Adams added. As a result of these and other Adams statements, Biden has reportedly not talked with Adams for nearly two years.
By itself, the Adams indictment and his animosity with Biden would not be noteworthy, but when the cases of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) are added to the mix, a troubling pattern emerges.
Before he was convicted on 16 counts, including bribery, acting as a foreign agent, and wire fraud this June, Menendez had been a strong critic of Biden’s appeasement of Cuba’s communist regime. When Biden eased travel restrictions on Americans visiting Cuba, Menendez accused Biden of being “simply in a state of denial” about the nature of the Cuban regime. Later, when Biden also appeased Venezuela’s socialist dictator by easing oil sanctions, Menendez said the policy was “a strategy destined to fail.” Menendez was, of course, right on both counts.
Cueller was indicted this May for allegedly accepting almost $600,000 in bribes from Azerbaijan officials and a Mexican bank. In exchange for the money, Cuellar allegedly pushed for closer ties with Azerbaijan over their Armenian rivals and tried to ease anti-money laundering regulations for the Mexican bank. Both troubling allegations if true. But like Adams, Cuellar has also been a critic of Biden’s catch-and-release border policies.
“If you have, in one year, millions of individuals that are encountered, and then you let hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them in, that becomes the pull factor,” Cuellar said of Biden’s border policies this January. “That catch and release … is the pull factor.” Again, Cuellar, like Menendez and Adams, is 100% right about Biden’s policy failures.
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Contrast the aggressive enforcement Adams, Cuellar, and Menendez have faced with the blind eye the Department of Justice has turned to Biden family business with foreign entities. As Congressional investigators have thoroughly documented, foreign actors have funneled over $10 million to Biden family members through 20 shell corporations all without any Biden registering as a foreign business agent. The DOJ tried to let the president’s son, Hunter Biden, avoid all consequences from his tax and gun crimes, a cover-up they would have gotten away with if not for the work of Congressional investigations.
We do not doubt that Democrats like Adams, Cuellar, and Menendez engaged in illegal activity, and that they should be held accountable, what is highly suspect though is that these are the only Democrats that are taking money from foreign entities and they also just happen to be big critics of Biden.