The Opinions - Luxury Turkish Travel Is the Least of Our Worries

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, was indicted last week for soliciting foreign funds for his campaign and for personal use. Casey Michel, director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation, argues that to prevent the further degradation of our democracy, officials need to be more aggressive about enforcing existing foreign interference laws. Thoughts? Email us at [e-mail]. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. My name is Casey Michelle. I am the director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation, and I cover and investigate foreign influence and foreign lobbying networks in the United States. The mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, was indicted in a sprawling indictment for allegedly working on the behalf of partners and benefactors in Turkey and opening the floodgates to foreign financing for the New York mayor's office. It is illegal for any foreign nationals from any country outside the United States of America to donate any amount of money to any American

official, to any American political campaign. That is a clear red flag. But as we saw in this indictment, Eric Adams is accused not only of accepting significant sums from foreign national, but of directing his staff to specifically cultivate networks of foreign financing that would flow directly to him and his campaigns both before and after he was elected as mayor of New York City. So it is, of course, extremely shocking, much of it unprecedented, but at the end of the day, much of it was actually unsurprising. This was something that a lot of folks who have been following foreign influence networks or foreign lobbying networks have been absolutely concerned about that we would someday see. You know, this has been the kind of some of all fears for those who have

been covering foreign influence and foreign lobbying campaigns for years. It's not just that foreign regimes can and have freely and legally hired lobbyists on the ground in the United States of America to do their bidding, but because of the broken and opaque nature of American campaign fundraising, at every level of American government, the ultimate concern was that foreign governments and foreign regimes would find a way to inject their own funding, their own financing into American political campaigns. And foreign influence, foreign manipulation, even foreign lobbying, are things all Americans should absolutely be concerned about, not only because it ends up manipulating policy, whether it's American foreign policy or even American domestic policy,

but because at the end of the day, this means that American officials at the federal level, the state level, and the local level are not responding to, or reporting to their constituents, but are instead responding to and acting at the behest of foreign nationals, foreign governments, even foreign dictators abroad. A lot of the work that I focus on that I work on are these foreign lobbying networks that operate around the U.S., but most especially in Washington. You know, these are generally Americans, American PR firms and law firms and consultant groups,

that freely and legally sign up to represent foreign regimes and foreign governments. No, I don't necessarily agree with a lot of what they do, let alone who they represent, but at the end of the day, they're committing no crimes, so long as they disclose what they are doing. What Mayor Adams is accused of doing goes far beyond what these traditional American lobbying firms, these foreign lobbyists that I've done a lot of work on have been doing. The precedent for what he was engaged in was that he was setting a model that other American officials around the country, but also his political opponents here in New York, looked at as a means of gaining access to significantly more sums than they would have been able to gain otherwise. Yes, there are plenty of deep-pocketed donors in New York or in the United States of America, but at the end of the day, there are far, far more.

abroad. And for as much concern as we have in the United States of America about big dollar donations, about corporate financing, and of course about campaign finance reform, that is a drop in the bucket compared to what these regimes can and by all appearances are willing to spend. And I imagine plenty of other officials that looked at Mayor Adams and thought what he was doing was a potentially successful model for them moving forward. I have no doubt that, that Mayor Adams was not operating in a vacuum. I have no doubt he was not the only official in New York or elsewhere that thought to himself that there are plenty of ways,

plenty of loopholes, plenty of cover-ups, that he can implement, that he can organize and direct to attract all of this money coming in. Because at the end of the day, if you are Mayor Adams' opponent or the political opponent of any other official that is accused of or rumored to be doing this, You have every incentive to try to structure these clandestine foreign funding networks yourself just to compete with the Mayor Adams of the world.

It's extremely concerning. It is extremely insidious. He's not just some small town, small time mayor. He is one of the most prominent political figures in all of America. And if a foreign regime can target and can flip him into being their effective not only lobbyist on the ground, but their effective, political ally themselves, then every regime thinks that they can target any other American official to do the same. Now, of course, he's not in charge of American foreign policy right now, but what we saw in the indictment is that there were those in Turkey who thought Mayor Adams was going to be the president of the United States one day. And so the pattern that we see emerge is that these regimes will cultivate these officials, whether at the local level or at the state level in the expectation that they will eventually rise to the national level, whether

in Congress or potentially even the White House itself. It is a complete manipulation of the New York mayor's race and a complete undercutting of any kind of sanctity that may remain for American elections writ large. The most important, the most impactful thing that can be done in the United States of America is relatively simple. It's just enforcing the laws on the books right now. the transparency requirements for the foreign lobbyists that operate in Washington and elsewhere. And if we can't enforce that, then I have no confidence we'll be able to enforce any other basic campaign finance regulations, which is why I'm so grateful that thankfully in recent years and especially in recent months, we're finally seeing prosecutions in this, but we certainly

need to see far, far more. I think the key lesson from this indictment is that, foreign governments, foreign regimes are not targeting just those in Washington, D.C. Of course, they are targeting those in Congress, those in White House in Washington, but at the end of the day, what we have seen with the Eric Adams indictment and with the Linda Sun indictment out of the governor's office, the former top aide to the governor, accused of being a foreign agent on behalf of China, what we are increasingly seeing is foreign regimes targeting American officials at all levels of government, national level, state level, state level, and even local level.

And they're doing it across the political spectrum. It's not just a Republican issue. It's not just a democratic issue. It crosses bipartisan lines, which is why we have to be absolutely vigilant moving forward about what these foreign dictatorships are doing to influence American policy. If you like this show,

follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is produced by Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Vichaka, B. B. B. Lett, Christina Samuelski, and Jillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek, and Annie Rose Strasser. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Saburo, and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amin Sahota. The fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris.

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