Dear listeners,
As Eric Adams says, New York is the Zagreb of America. And the Seoul, the Dublin, the Mexico City. People from all over the world come to New York to make their dreams come true. And sometimes, those dreams are illegal.
The corruption scandals surrounding the Adams administration have been refreshingly multicultural. Adams supporters from literally around the globe are alleged to have concealed straw donations and to have bribed him and his aides with so many creative things of value, from business class upgrades on Turkish Airways to crab cakes to a cameo on the Hulu series “Godfather of Harlem.”
Some months ago, longtime Adams consigliere Ingrid Lewis-Martin went on her lawyer’s podcast and declared: “I do believe that in the end that the New York City public will see that we have not done anything illegal to the magnitude or scale that requires the federal government and the DA’s office to investigate us.” This week, we learned that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg disagrees — Lewis-Martin has been indicted for taking that TV series cameo in exchange for impeding a street safety redesign that would have complicated access to co-defendants Gina and Tony Argento’s Broadway Stages in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Also swept up in the case are a Chinese-American businessman who made “consulting” payments to Lewis-Martin’s son that appear to be kickbacks for city contracts, and a Jewish developer who is said to have done free renovation work on Lewis-Martin’s home in exchange for business with the city.
At least Lewis-Martin has looked fierce at both of her arraignments.
Meanwhile, Winnie Greco, Adams’s longtime liaison to the Chinese-American community, tried to give approximately $140 to reporter Katie Honan of THE CITY, a sum that was placed in a red envelope stuffed inside an empty bag of potato chips. (Greco’s lawyer Steven Brill says this is just a Chinese cultural practice, though we’re pretty sure that’s not true, especially the part about the potato chips.) As Ken and I discuss, trying to pay off a reporter is not inherently illegal. But the US Attorney’s office in Brooklyn — already investigating Greco over her ties to the communist Chinese government — was interested enough in the handoff that it sent an investigator to take the money (and the potato chip bag) into evidence.
Greatest city in the world.
In non-Eric Adams news, John Bolton’s home outside Washington D.C. was raided by the FBI early Friday morning, apparently searching for classified documents. Ken and I discuss what showings the DOJ must have made to get the search warrant. We look at Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s arguments that he is being subjected to selective and vindictive prosecution, and why the latter is likely to be a more fruitful argument than the former. (After we recorded, Garcia was released from jail pending trial.)
And an appeals court in New York threw out the nearly half-billion dollar disgorgement penalty against Trump and his businesses. Several issues divided the five-judge panel, but they were unanimous in their view that the fine was so excessive that it violated the Eighth Amendment.
We look at the news that Newsmax will pay $67 million to Dominion Voting Systems to settle defamation litigation about the 2020 election, and at Fox News text messages that have been made public as part of discovery in Smartmatic’s suit against Fox. We talk about a judge’s decision that Alina Habba isn’t the US Attorney for New Jersey, and we look at a favorable ruling for the beleaguered Media Matters for America.
We hope you enjoy the episode,
Josh
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