Mr. Michel is the director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation and the author of “Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World.”
The new, unsealed indictment against Eric Adams, accusing him of a range of crimes over nearly a decade, is significant for any number of reasons: Mr. Adams is the first mayor in New York history to face federal indictment while in office and also, to my knowledge, the first sitting mayor in American history indicted on charges of acting at the behest not of his constituents but of a foreign power.
But Mr. Adams isn’t accused of simply acting as a foreign agent, as were other officials recently, like former Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Linda Sun, a top aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York. He is accused of something more insidious: injecting foreign funds directly into his election campaigns, compromising not only the mayor’s office but also American elections.
According to the indictment, Mr. Adams crafted networks to open the floodgates of foreign financing directly into an American election — all for his and his foreign partners’ benefit. This goes far beyond accepting or providing favors or glad-handing with foreign officials. While the sums are not necessarily large, what nearly a decade of Mr. Adams accepting Turkish money shows is that U.S. democracy is for sale, sometimes for as little as a luxury flight and a nice night in a hotel.
