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Morning Spew

Swagger Mayor Suddenly Shy

After an FBI raid of his chief fundraisers home, the mayor is dodging questions from the press.

9:26 AM EST on November 6, 2023

Predator in Prospect Park. (Hell Gate)

Even during times when Mayor Eric Adams hasn't been surrounded by scandals involving his campaign's fundraising, this administration's relationship to the press has been a contentious one. Adams hates taking questions from the media so much that in October, he began limiting reporters to a weekly "off-topic" press conference where the mayor would answer just a few select questions (and often not even bother calling on Hell Gate, or even smaller, more local publications, like the New York Times). 

Since Thursday's FBI raid of the home of his chief campaign fundraiser Brianna Suggs, however, the mayor has ducked almost every public appearance where he would usually take "on-topic" questions from the press, and he's now even canceled his weekly "off-topic" press conference, which usually takes place on Tuesday. 

His deputy mayor for communications, Fabien Levy (who earns an annual salary of $250,000 to do not very much communicating), told the Daily News that the mayor wouldn't be taking questions on Tuesday because "the office is technically closed" on Election Day. 

That's a weird excuse, because last year on Election Day, Adams held a whole press conference where he took questions and everything. Levy said Adams will be talking to reporters later in the week. But man, between his wild rush back from D.C. on the morning of the raid and now the cancellation of his weekly press conference, this does not give off the appearance of a mayor comfortable with what's coming out about his campaign. 

So what more have we found out about the FBI raid of the home of Brianna Suggs, the 25 year old who by all accounts ran the fundraising operation of Eric Adams's 2021 campaign? Not a whole lot. A New York Times dive into Suggs reveals an ambitious young woman with close connections to many of the important figures in Eric Adams's orbit, like Ingrid Lewis-Martin, but who was deeply inexperienced when it came to running a multimillion dollar fundraising apparatus. 

That campaign, it was revealed over the weekend, took money from a Turkish construction company, KSK, whose owner had been implicated in bribery schemes in 2007 and 2008. As for that cash, the CITY reports that staff of New York City's Campaign Finance Board had repeatedly asked Adams's campaign about those donations, which were allegedly made by KSK employees, some of whom now state that they never made those donations at all.   

On Friday, the Messenger reported that an NYPD squad car had been sent to Suggs's Crown Heights residence the night before the raid, a move the NYPD defended as routine, but that left former federal agents baffled

While the mayor's schedule for today has no appearances where the press can ask him questions, he has still been running around town. He voted over the weekend (unannounced), and yesterday, during an appearance at the Purpose Life Church in Brooklyn, he reiterated his claims that God told him he would be mayor, that children are picking up fentanyl off the street, and that God is continuing to speak with him regularly. In the world, he said, "there's a demonic energy, and it's time to pray." 

We pray that at some point the mayor will begin answering some very important questions regarding his campaign donors.

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