(Bloomberg) -- New York Mayor Eric Adams was subpoenaed as part of a corruption probe by the Justice Department, the New York Times reported.
Attorneys for Adams, who said they’re in the process of responding to the subpoenas, said they continue to cooperate with the investigation and expect a prompt and just resolution. Brendan McGuire and Boyd Johnson, who are partners at WilmerHale, said they’ve conducted their own investigation “of the areas we understand the US Attorney’s Office has been reviewing” and that “we have not identified any evidence of illegal conduct.”
The Times reported that subpoenas were also served to City Hall and Adams’s election committee, and that they seek information into a range of areas including the mayor’s travel and fund raising.
A spokesman for the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.
“As a former member of law enforcement, the mayor has been clear over the last nine months that he will cooperate with any investigation underway,” Fabien Levy, a spokesman for Adams, said in a statement. “Nothing has changed. He expects everyone to cooperate to swiftly bring this investigation to a close.”
While the extent of the probe is unclear, the Times has reported that investigators are looking at a so-called straw donor scheme involving the Turkish government or Turkish nationals in which contributors listed for Adams’s 2021 mayoral campaign weren’t the actual source of the money.
They’re also examining whether Adams pressured the Fire Department to expedite the opening of the Turkish consulate’s 35-story tower in time for the United Nations General Assembly in September 2021, the Times has reported. That was after Adams, who was then the Brooklyn borough president, won the Democratic primary but before he had won the general election in November.
The federal investigation became public in November after Federal Bureau of Investigation agents executed a search warrant at the Brooklyn home of Adams fundraiser Brianna Suggs. They were seeking information about whether Adams’s campaign had taken illegal foreign donations from contributors with ties to the Turkish government, the Times reported.
--With assistance from Ava Benny-Morrison and Laura Nahmias.
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