Of all the headlines that New York City Mayor Eric Adams might have wanted to see, this certainly was not one of them. He’s been battling a wave of migrants flooding his city, rising crime rates, and huge holes in the city’s budget. Now, on top of all that, the FBI is conducting a campaign finance impropriety investigation and they seized his phone and his tablet this week. This could prove particularly embarrassing for a mayor who was formerly a career law enforcement official himself. But Adams insists that he’s cooperating fully and that his hands are clean. In this case, he may turn out to be correct. (ABC News)

The federal corruption investigation into Eric Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign has taken another turn as FBI agents seized his electronic devices this week.

Mayor Adams confirmed on Friday that the FBI took his phone at an event on Monday evening.

“As a former member of law enforcement, I expect all members of my staff to follow the law and fully cooperate with any sort of investigation and I will continue to do exactly that. I have nothing to hide,” Mayor Eric Adams said on Friday.

Adams’ attorney told reporters that the investigation was launched at the request of the mayor after he learned that “an individual had recently acted improperly.” He also said that Adams has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

More devices were taken from the Mayor’s office. That all happened on Monday evening, but ABC reports that all of the mayor’s devices have already been returned as of this weekend. This would suggest that he might be telling the truth about all of this, which would be a refreshing change in New York politics. But the FBI wouldn’t be swooping in unless they believed that somebody had done something wrong.

The person is reportedly 25-year-old Brianna Suggs, a top Democratic fundraiser in the city. While the FBI isn’t confirming anything yet, it’s being reported that Suggs allegedly worked with some Turkish nationals to funnel money through a Williamsburg construction company and into the Adams campaign in 2021. The ostensible goal would have been to secure construction contracts with the city.

Thus far, Mayor Adams has never been shown to have directly engaged in any sort of fraud or illegal actions in office. But his mayorship has carried the scent of nepotism and potentially dodgy campaign finance violations from the beginning. Over the summer, six of his cronies were indicted on campaign finance fraud charges, suggesting that they had funneled large sums of money into his campaign using straw donors with Adams somehow knowing nothing about it.

Adams has also established a reputation for handing out high-paying city jobs to relatives and friends since taking office. He hired both his brother and his sister-in-law for jobs that they seemed to be mostly unqualified for. His former roommate also landed a position with the city paying a fat salary. Adams and another of his old cronies hired each other’s girlfriends for taxpayer-funded positions. Yet another old pal is still making nearly a quarter million dollars per year on the Big Apple’s payroll.

Perhaps Eric Adams is telling the truth in this case and any violations that took place were committed by people in his orbit without his knowledge. But people generally don’t engage in the sort of campaign finance schemes being alleged here simply because of their generous nature. Most of them expect something in return. None of this passes the smell test, but perhaps some of these people will wind up turning state’s evidence and we’ll learn more later.