America Installs Another Giant Neon Sign That Says BRIBE US
In case you missed the other ones.
What a romantic Valentine’s Day it was! After seven prosecutors quit instead of sacrificing their integrity and filing to dismiss charges against allegedly corrupt-as-hell New York Mayor Eric Adams, DOJ number two Emil Bove locked the 30 or so remaining prosecutors of the Public Integrity Section in a room and gave them one hour to pick one of themselves to file to dismiss charges or they’d all be fired. Just some psychological torture to get the weekend going, because Bove is apparently into that kind of thing! Also it’s easier to pull a smash and grab after you get rid of any hostages who might try to be a hero.
And two of them did step up! The plucky tributes were Antoinette Bacon (Federalist Society “contributor”) and Edward P. Sullivan. Sullivan is a long-serving prosecutor who is perhaps best known for being on the team that convicted Ted Stevens, a defrosted caveman and former Republican Senator from Alaska who was accused of seven counts of lying on public disclosure forms about some alleged oil company kickbacks.
Are Sullivan and Bacon heroes for saving their colleague’s jobs, or zeroes for not holding the line and forcing Bove to fire everybody and try to explain his extortion-y position to the judge? Maybe one of each? The Internet is divided.
The other public corruption cases Sullivan has prosecuted seem like couch change compared to Mayor Adams’s alleged $1.1 million in goodies and fraudulently obtained campaign funds. There was one contracting officer Zaldy N. Sabino, formerly of the Department of State, who got $239,300 in cash payments from a Turkish construction firm, and 87 months in prison. And Department of State program manager Kelli R. Davis, who stole $17,777 from the Sports Visitor Program, and split another $17,335 with a vendor for kickbacks; she got 13 months. And the former mayor of Dunkirk, New York, who pocketed campaign donations and got six months’ home confinement (he was 85). Point is, public employees go down for much less, all the time. Or at least they used to, before Big Don came to town. Now it’s patronage and spoils all over again!
Judge Dale Ho of the federal district court for Southern District New York (SDNY) in Manhattan still gets to decide if Adams’s charges will be dismissed, and will Sullivan blink out in morse code that he was forced to file for a dismissal because he and his co-workers’ jobs were threatened? But even if Ho gets the hostage message and refuses to dismiss, with no one to prosecute it, Adams’s prosecution won’t be going anywhere. Unless Adams doesn’t hold up his end of the bargain and massage New York City’s sanctuary city laws to appease Trump, that is.
But doesn’t sound like Adams has a problem being pleasing! “I’m not standing in the way, I’m collaborating!” he chirped on Fox.
New York passed a law in 2014 to end the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in all City facilities and at Rikers, but sounds like he plans to ignore that. Donlantecuhtli demands human sacrifice!
Hizzoner’s soon-to-be-dismissed charges come right after Monday’s extra-greasy double-fried Executive Order pausing investigations and prosecutions of American companies engaged in corruption in foreign countries under the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Turkey, India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, get in line, time to stuff some trunks full of cash and get tipping!
What will become of the other people in Adams’s orbit charged with crimes? His chief advisor, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, resigned after being charged for taking $100,000 in bribes from two construction contractors hoping to speed along their projects, and cashing those checks to buy a Porsche for her son Glenn Martin, who’s also charged. Subtle!
Two of Adams’s co-conspirators have already pleaded guilty in the straw donation scheme: Erden Arkan, a Turkish businessman pleaded to a count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and Mohamed Bahi pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the government. Maybe Trump will pardon them too. LOL, we are funny. Everybody knows the little people always go under the bus! Except the little people.
At least we can enjoy an ass-scorching letter from one of the seven who resigned, US Attorney Hagen Scotten, who was far-right enough to clerk for Brett Kavanaugh and even called in to CBS to talk about what a swell guy the Ralphing King of the mid-Atlantic is.
Wonder if Scotten will still be singing Kavanaugh’s praises after one of these executive overreach-around cases inevitably gets to the Supreme Court, and Kavanaugh gives everybody a middle finger and peels off in a Winnebago with Squee and Donkey Dick Doug?
Last word to Leticia James!
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[New York Times archive link/ Reuters]
I fulfilled my vaccination wish list today with my second shingles shot and the pneumococcal vaccine. Now I have gotten all the ones recommended for my age and covered by Medicare. Celebrating with pizza of course.
There's a chance for a decent sized snowstorm to hit NYC next week. I'd bet Mayor Adams is really hoping that comes true. Nothing like half a foot of snow to distract and give him a chance to act mayoral.