The spectacular collapse of the Mayor Adams’s administration is still in progress. Pretty much everyone with ties to the ex-cop, current mayor has either been informed of an ongoing investigation or managed to infer that following multiple raids by the FBI.
The mayor’s handpicked police commissioner, Edward Caban, resigned shortly after these raids occurred, most likely because he was on the receiving end of one of these raids. So were First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks, Phil Banks’s brother, David Banks, who is the schools chancellor, and Timothy Pearson, the mayor’s adviser.
Edward Caban issued a “get out of accountability free” missive to the NYPD as he left the building. He was replaced by former FBI Special Agent Michael Donlon… whose own house was also raided by the FBI.
In the middle of all this raiding and resigning, the Mayor’s PR people came forward to say the mayor was shocked, shocked! to discover there might be some sort of corruption-laden city government with himself at the center of all of it. The issued statement wasn’t quite the exoneration it was meant to be:
“As a former member of law enforcement, the mayor has repeatedly made clear that all members of the team need to follow the law.”
You know who doesn’t have to say that kind of thing repeatedly? Someone who oversees a bunch of people who have expressed no interest nor engaged in acts that might potentially violate the law. No honest politician/advisor/political appointee/police chief needs to be “repeatedly” reminded to “follow the law.” It just comes naturally to most people.
But Mayor Adams’s people are not most people. A lot of them are also former cops. Perhaps that explains all the corruption.
Mayor Adams himself isn’t immune to this ongoing investigation. In fact, he experienced his own personal raid a year before the onslaught of recent raids that have made headlines around the nation. Now that the mayor is under indictment, court filings are starting to expose a lot of details that were deliberately kept out of public view as the FBI engaged in its investigation.
One of those details is the fact that the FBI executed a search warrant targeting multiple phones used by Mayor Adams. However, his personal phone was not among those seized. A subpoena was issued ordering the mayor to turn over his personal phone (which is alleged to be the device the mayor used to “communicate about the conduct described in this indictment”). Mayor Adams complied. Sort of. He gave the FBI his phone. What he didn’t give the FBI was a way to see the phone’s contents, according to this report by Gaby Del Valle for The Verge.
When Adams turned in his personal cellphone the following day, charging documents say, he said he had changed the password a day prior — after learning about the investigation — and couldn’t remember it.
Sure looks like an attempt to withhold and/or destroy evidence. The fact that this happened the day after the FBI seized the mayor’s other phones isn’t going to work out well for him in court. His excuse — that he couldn’t remember it — is no more believable than his office’s assertion that everyone engaged in legal behavior because they were repeatedly told not to violate the law.
But both of those statements are far more believable than the mayor’s explanation of the post-FBI visit password changing:
Adams told investigators he changed the password “to prevent members of his staff from inadvertently or intentionally deleting the contents of his phone,” the indictment alleges.
LOL
Keep in mind, this was the mayor’s personal phone. Pretending staffers had routine and easy access to it or its contents beggars belief. And the simplest way to prevent staffers from “accidentally” deleting evidence of alleged criminal actions would be to maintain possession of the phone on your person or throw it in a safe or lock it in a desk drawer or do literally anything other than change a password and immediately “forget” what it was.
Again, none of this is going to reflect well on the mayor as he faces these charges in court. Any judge will see it the way the rest of us see it: a deliberate attempt to thwart a federal investigation.
Even so, let’s hope this doesn’t result in any stupid precedent motivated by the mayor’s apparently willful attempt to obstruct this investigation. There’s some potential here for rulings that might negatively affect Fifth Amendment rights and/or give the feds leverage to agitate for compelled assistance from phone manufacturers.
Because there’s a chance it might do any of these things. The FBI has had the phone for a long time. And it still hasn’t managed to access its contents. The FBI insists (without supporting evidence, obviously) that this is a BIG DEAL that might BREAK THE CASE.
During a federal court hearing, prosecutor Hagan Scotten said the FBI’s inability to get into Adams’s phone is a “significant wild card,” according to a report from the New York Post.
I want to believe that might be true. But only because I want the feds to deliver a ton of incriminating evidence that takes down Mayor Adams and anyone else in his administration who engaged in corruption. On the other hand, the FBI always claims any phone it can’t get into must be loaded with incriminating evidence capable of producing slam-dunk prosecutions. The FBI’s anti-encryption agitation relies on its fervent belief that the best and most incriminating evidence is always found on encrypted devices, therefore courts should force companies (or accused persons) to decrypt the contents so special agents can open and close investigations without ever leaving their desks.
I’m definitely here for the fallout. I’m guessing these raids will lead to a string of resignations, a cooperating witness or two, and a few wrist slaps for ex-law enforcement officials. But if someone’s going to burn for this, it should be the person at the top of the city food chain. And as much as I’d like to see that happen, I’d much rather it was accomplished without collateral damage to Constitutional rights or the security and privacy provided by strong encryption.
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