CNN News Night with Abby Phillip: Mayor Adams Indictment
6m 4s
RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
Evening.
>> York. Let‘s get right to what America is talking about. There is news breaking, just moments ago that the New York City mayor Eric Adams, has now been indicted on at least one federal criminal charge in the indictment as of right? It now is sealed, so it‘s unclear exactly what charge or charges mayor Adams will face, but he will become the first mayor in the city‘s history to be charged while still in office, federal investigators have been looking at his campaign fundraising at foreign influence violations. And mayor Adams has denied I‘d any wrongdoing despite resignations left and right from right inside of his administration, we‘re going to discuss this at the table, but first let‘s go to CNN‘s chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, John Miller, who‘s been a part of New York City for quite a long time. I mean, John, first of all, what do we know? Oh, about all the various things that mayor Adams could be facing here, which adds to a level of complexity, given that we don‘t yet know what the charges are well, Abby, first in full disclosure, I worked for mayor Adams as a deputy police commissioner in the beginning of his administration. So he and his team are people that I‘m highly familiar with what we‘re looking at here is and it‘s a great way to frame it because it‘s complicated and we should understand it. This is an investigation started by the FBI more than a year ago. Last November they did search warrants against several of atoms, key aides, and associates, and businessmen connected allegedly to this case that is what put us on notice that the FBI was investigating it after that they seize the mayor‘s phones and electronic devices and we have seen them subpoena additional records with search warrants, looking into campaign finance records, foreign trips by the mirror particularly on Turkish airlines and allegations have been in the subtext of this story as to what was provided by the mayor allegedly in return for that this is key. That is the thing that has not been clearly spelled out. And the investigative activity we‘ve been able to see when this indictment we are told was handed up by the grand jury today, and sealed, which is why we don‘t know what‘s inside it. There will be an announcement we expect tomorrow by the office of the United States attorney, where they will lay out these charges. And what‘s behind them. But when we see that, because based on what we‘ve got so far we don‘t see the quid pro quo. We don‘t say he did this specifically in return for that we haven‘t seen that allegation. And that is the kind of thing for a United States attorney to indict the mayor of America‘s largest city that would have to go from the us attorney‘s office up to the public corruption section in the U.S. Department of Justice from there to the attorney general to get an indictment like that approved, meaning they‘ve read through the charges and they think they pass muster yeah so we will be looking with great anticipation to see what that says. We know what the mayor says, what the mayor says tonight was I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers, that I would be a target and argued I became if I am charged, I am innocent and will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit there‘s a lot in that statement.
>> Question for you because I think you alluded to this. This has been going on now in the background and a lot of investigative steps or were only seeing the public aspects of it every once in awhile. In over the last year. But over the last week or two, there have been a number of resignations, a number of retirements, a number of people being charged around the Eric Adams administration put that all together for us. What is the impact of that on this city well, this is basically five investigations.
>> Influence from China, who allegedly they‘re investing, getting whether a key aide to the mayor was co-opted to do China‘s bidding within the city administration, similar to the case we just saw with an aide to the governor another is a case into two deputy mayors and the school‘s chancellor. And that is looking into how contracts were awarded specifically contracts that were awarded with urgency on issues like migrant housing and other things, security contracts, and more a special assistant to the mayor, the police commissioner was probe because his twin brother was allegedly going around shaking down bars for money on the idea that he good either ease up on police enforcement or perhaps increase it if it if money was paid. So you see this flurry of activity, but they‘re separate. The mayor‘s investigation that‘s the FBI, the deputy a. Maerz investigation is being led by the U.S. attorney‘s office and other agencies the foreign counterintelligence section of the FBI is looking into the alleged Chinese foreign influence. But Abby, as you pointed out, what what it has caused is a storm of subpoenas, seizures search warrants among the people closest to the mayor which of course is has cast a large shadow over the administration, over city hall. And over the atoms campaign, which is going to face an election within a year.
>> Reelection next year. There are a number of people lining up to replace him. He‘s he‘s made a lot of political enemies Justin. His time as mayor. And many of those people have already started speaking up and calling for him at this point to resign. John Miller, please stand by for us. Has the story continues to develop, we‘re going to bring it in to the studio here at the table, joining us in our fits seat is Manhattan criminal defense attorney Stacy Schneider, Stacey as John just pointed out, it‘s a lot of different investigations. I mean, I think we will have a conversation here with this group about the political implications of it