The lawyers behind the defense of Governor Bob McDonnell said the case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams “strains credulity” and doesn’t match the speculation surrounding the indictment.
James Burnham and Yaakov Roth, who led the legal team that successfully cleared former Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell of several corruption charges, said that the Adams indictment struggled to prove the “quid pro quo” essential to any corruption investigation.
Adams denied all five charges brought against him last week, saying that the accusations of bribery and fraud were politically motivated. His defense was similar to that of former President Donald Trump, who was also criminally indicted in New York City, with Trump also claiming he was a victim of a biased judicial system.
Writing in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, Burnham and Roth said that “the bribery charges against Eric Adams fail to match the hype,” and described the case as one-sided.
Eric Adams in Brooklyn, New York, on November 2, 2021. He has denied all five charges brought against him.
ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images
“Prosecutors must prove an agreement to furnish concrete exercises of actual governmental power—such as awarding contracts, casting votes or vetoing legislation—to sustain a bribery charge. Anything less is just politics.
“Even in this one-sided indictment, the theory strains credulity. We are asked to believe that Turkish officials began providing benefits to Borough President Adams in 2015, continued doing so for years, and did all this in exchange for Mr. Adams’s doing something anyone who was about to become mayor would reflexively do: push city bureaucrats to expedite clearance of a major foreign installation in time for a head of state’s visit.”
Adams was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and receiving campaign contributions by foreign nationals; one count of wire fraud; two counts of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national; and one count of bribery last week.
He is the first sitting mayor in New York City’s history to face criminal charges brought against him by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Burnham and Roth successfully cleared McDonnell of several similar corruption charges in 2016, after the Supreme Court case McDonnell v. United States overturned previous convictions of bribery and fraud.
Newsweek contacted the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York for comment.
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