The federal five-count indictment of New York Mayor Eric Adams is on its face a damning document of alleged public corruption. The government is alleging that Turkish officials saw Adams as a rising star in the Democratic Party and started to groom him for influence.

However, once beyond the details of the opulent rooms and flight upgrades, there may be less here than meets the eye in some of these charges. ...

In one night, Ocasio-Cortez flaunted roughly half of the value of the alleged Adams gifts as she paraded as a social warrior among the social elite. The truly hilarious aspect was that it was the elite who were thrilled by the demonstration and subsidized it.

The Adams allegations would constitute a fairly crude form of corruption by today’s standards.