Enjoy our new column by the Democratizing Foreign Policy team exposing stealth corruption infecting our system — in plain sight.
On Monday, the Trump administration dropped charges of bribery, campaign finance, and conspiracy offenses against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Adams had allegedly received some $123,000 in travel benefits from Turkish airlines and knowingly accepted tens of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions from Turkish nationals.
A triumphant Adams addressed New Yorkers today; “I thank the Justice Department for its honesty. Now we can put this cruel episode behind us and focus on the future of our city.”
The Justice Department memo cited two reasons for this dismissal. First, the Justice Department invoked a fear of weaponization, suggesting that “it cannot be ignored that Mayor Adams criticized the prior administration immigration policies before the charges were filed.” (All of the targets of the most high-profile foreign influence cases of the Biden administration era were Democrats).
Second, Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said the decision was not based on the strength of evidence in the case, but rather it was distracting from law-and-order priorities.
If the mayor of the largest city in America being in the pocket of a foreign government is not a law and order priority, what is?
The memo echoed a series of orders dispatched by Attorney General Pam Bondi last week. Bondi noted that the Justice Department will only bring criminal charges of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in “instances of alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.” Her Justice Department also disbanded the Foreign Influence Task Force, made up of some 50 FBI agents tasked with uncovering covert plots to meddle in U.S. politics, citing “risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion.”
Adams is the first to reap the benefits of this policy shift, having spent months auditioning for the Trump administration’s favor. Adams met with Trump in Mar-a-Lago, attended his inauguration, and the two even chatted ringside at a UFC fight at Madison Square Garden. Both maintain they were victims of a weaponized Justice Department; "We were persecuted, Eric. I was persecuted, and so are you, Eric,” said Trump at a dinner in October.
Following an 11-year sentence for bribery and acting as a foreign agent, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is trying to follow the same playbook. “President Trump is right. This process is political, and it's corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores integrity to the system,” he said outside of a New York courthouse after his conviction in late January.
Menendez had used his role as Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee to benefit the government of Egypt, approving arms sales in exchange for gold bars and luxury cars.
There are several other ongoing cases. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) was indicted for bribery and acting as a foreign agent, receiving some $600,000 in kickbacks from a bank in Mexico City and an oil company controlled by Azerbaijan. Sue Mi Terry allegedly fed non-public U.S. government information to South Korean intelligence while working at various think tanks. An indictment against New York State official Linda Sun alleged that she was given millions of dollars while secretly working for China.
None of these cases have gone to trial, creating an awkward question of how they will proceed amidst the Justice Department’s shift away from FARA enforcement. Caplin & Drysdale’s Matt Sanderson told Politico that “it will be difficult to sustain an ongoing case that does not involve espionage-type behavior.”
One thing is for sure, though. If Trump’s first moves are any indication, it is open season for foreign influence in America. Perhaps most revealing, Adams was not even charged with a FARA violation. There are other laws on the books — bribery, after all, is still illegal — but what good are they if they are being dismissed too? For politicians looking to cash in from foreign governments eager to buy influence in Washington, the floodgates are open.
