New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) said Tuesday that he was “fully cooperating” with a federal investigation into alleged foreign influence into his campaign.
Federal prosecutors and the FBI have reportedly been investigating whether the mayor’s 2021 election campaign took illegal foreign donations from the Turkish government.
The details began emerging after an FBI raid on November 2 at the Brooklyn home of Brianna Suggs, Adams’ campaign consultant and top fundraiser.
The FBI also seized Adams’cell phones and an iPad pursuant to a court authorized search warrant.
“This is an ongoing review and as a former member of law-enforcement, it is always my belief, don’t interfere with an ongoing review, and don’t try to do these reviews through the press,” Adams said during a news conference on Tuesday. “We are fully cooperating with whatever the reviewers are looking for….My role is to allow them to do their job without interference, and I have to do my job continuing to make sure the city navigate to the various issues that we are facing.”
When asked if there was “something there” that could prevent him from continuing in his official duties, he replied, “We’ll continue to move forward and run this city, and I think New Yorkers should be proud of how we are continuing to move forward….We’re going to continue to do the job.”
Even so, the raid on Suggs’ home apparently prompted the mayor to abruptly cancel several meetings scheduled for that same morning in Washington DC, where he had planned to talk with White House officials and members of Congress about the influx of migrants in New York.
When asked by reporters six days after the raid what, exactly, he was doing in New York during the FBI search—rather than staying in Washington to deal with what he’s called an “unsustainable crisis”—Adams had replied, “I did not want to be sitting inside a meeting somewhere when there was something playing out here in the city.”
Meanwhile, CNN sources said Tuesday that the feds were looking into contacts with Turkish government officials in New York and in Turkey to determine if a foreign government used a web of businessmen and Turkish expatriots to try to gain favor with Adams as a means to further Turkey’s business interests in the city.
Investigators have also been seeking to learn more about the potential involvement of a Brooklyn construction company with ties to Turkey, along with a small DC university with ties to both Adams and Turkey.
In the past two years, Adams’ 2025 reelection campaign has paid Suggs, a registered lobbyist, nearly $100,000 for fund-raising and campaign consulting services via her company, Suggs Solutions, according to city records. His first mayoral campaign paid her more than $50,000.
Adams’ fundraising machine has already raised more than $2.5 million for his 2025 reelection campaign, at least $900,000 of which Suggs has claimed to be responsible. She has further claimed to have personally raised $18.4 million for Adams’ initial 2021 mayoral campaign.
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