Turkish Forum

Tag: Eric Adams

  • Islamophobic Rhetoric by Mayor Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo

    Islamophobic Rhetoric by Mayor Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo

    Statement in Response to Islamophobic Rhetoric by Mayor Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo

    by Ibrahim Kurtulus Community Activist

    In recent days, deeply troubling comments have been made by Mayor Eric Adams and echoed by political surrogates and supporters of former Governor Andrew Cuomo remarks that irresponsibly conflate the peaceful faith of millions of Muslim Americans with extremism abroad. Such rhetoric is not only misleading and factually incorrect, but it also fuels a climate of suspicion, hostility, and division at a time when unity and understanding are urgently needed.

    Let us be clear and precise: Islam is not the cause of extremism. Muslims are not responsible for the acts of radicals.

    The Mayor Eric Adams reference to Nigeria, for example, is demonstrably inaccurate. Violence in Nigeria is not a simple case of “Islamic extremism burning churches.” Nigeria faces deeply complex internal challenges ranging from ethnopolitical conflicts, criminal banditry, resource competition, and armed insurgencies involving multiple actors. Communities of all religions, including Muslims, have both suffered from and opposed violence. To reduce such human tragedy into a political talking point is irresponsible and profoundly misleading.

    Yet what is even more alarming is the willingness of political actors to seize upon fear in order to divide New Yorkers for electoral gain. When public leaders speak carelessly, they legitimize the darkest impulses on our streets. And today we are witnessing a measurable rise in harassment, intimidation, and violence against Muslim Americans here in our own communities, in our own neighborhoods, on our own buses, sidewalks, and playgrounds.

    What is perhaps most painful is the silence of those who should know better. Silence from those who claim moral authority. Silence from those who claim to value civil rights. Silence from those who pledge inclusivity yet remain mute when Muslim Americans are targeted. This silence is not neutrality. It is complicity. As Turkish Americans as Muslim Americans, as New Yorkers, and as people of conscience from all faiths and backgrounds, we speak today with one united voice:

    Bigotry against any of us is a threat to all of us. An attack on you is an attack on me.

    This nation was built upon the foundational belief in the inherent dignity of all people. Our diversity is not a liability it is our greatest strength. When hatred is directed at any community Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Sikh, Black, Asian, immigrant, LGBTQ+, or any other our very democracy is diminished.

    We reject the use of religion as a political weapon. We reject rhetoric that dehumanizes. We reject fear as a tool of public leadership.

    Instead, we affirm the following: Every person has the right to practice their faith without intimidation or shame. Our city is strongest when we protect one another.

    We will not allow the peaceful religion of Islam to be defamed by those who seek division.

    New York has long stood as a symbol of hope etched in the Statue of Liberty, echoed in our neighborhoods, and lived daily in our shared lives. We will continue to uphold the values of cooperation, respect, and mutual understanding. We will challenge stereotypes, confront ignorance, and stand up together against the hatred that threatens our society.

    Hate leaves a scar on a city. But solidarity heals.

    Today, we reaffirm our commitment to a just, inclusive, and equitable New York where all children may grow without fear, where all families are respected, and where our leaders speak with responsibility and truth.

    We stand together. We speak together. And we will not be divided.

    Ibrahim Kurtulus

    Community Activist

  • NYC Mayor Attended 80 Events In 8 Years Related to Turkey

    NYC Mayor Attended 80 Events In 8 Years Related to Turkey

    Three weeks ago, when I first wrote about FBI’s investigation of New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ campaign links to Turkey, I did not realize that this will be the opening of Pandora’s box.

    Last week, Adams created a defense fund to raise money to pay the legal expenses for the expanding federal probe into his 2021 election campaign. The law permits Adams to receive donations up to $5,000. However, he must disclose the names and addresses of all donors.

    According to the New York Post, “Federal authorities are investigating whether the Turkish government or Turkish citizens illegally funneled donations to Adams’ campaign by using ‘straw donors’ — a scheme where contributors listed in official records aren’t the actual source of funding — and whether Adams did quid-pro-quo favors.”

    Multiple sources told the New York Post: “the Adams administration staffer who was found to have allegedly ‘acted improperly’ amid the federal corruption probe into his campaign fundraising worked in the city’s Office for International Affairs before abruptly being placed on leave.” The Mayor’s office confirmed the information.

    That person is Rana Abbasova who was the Mayor’s Director of Protocol. Originally from Azerbaijan, she performed advanced planning and logistics for mayoral events and traveled with him. Her annual salary is $80,651. The Post was told that she lied to federal investigators.

    Abbasova previously served as community coordinator and advisor to Adams when he was Brooklyn borough President. Her biography states that: “She was responsible for international relations and maintaining relationships between the Borough President and stakeholders, including the Middle East and Central Asian countries, Muslim and Russian-speaking communities, and Non-profit organizations. She also worked with Embassies and Consulates to build relationships between countries and the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President to help overcome language barriers and cultural differences. She also organized Turkic Heritage events and assisted with Sister Cities agreements. Abbasova was also an administrative assistant for Adams’ One Brooklyn Fund, Inc. when he was still borough President.”

    The City news website reported that in April 2017, Abbasova arranged a meeting between borough President Adams and the Turken Foundation, founded by Pres. Erdogan’s son, Bilal. Three of Turken’s board members contributed a total of $6,000 to the Mayor’s campaign. His schedule shows that he attended four Turken events. Turken is registered as a foreign agent with the Department of Justice.

    Abbasova arranged for Adams at least three “meetings and events related to Turkey when he was borough president, a review of his schedule shows. Among them was a 2015 grand opening celebration for a Turkish restaurant in Brooklyn, which she marked as ‘important.’”

    POLITICO reported that as Brooklyn borough President, Adams “attended nearly 80 events over eight years celebrating Turkey — including a flag-raising in 2015, a charity ball in 2018 and a Zoom meeting with the Turkish consul in 2020.”

    After reviewing thousands of Adams’ public schedules and many social media posts, POLITICO revealed his “unusually strong relationship with Turkey, which has drawn scrutiny from federal investigators.” In 2019, as Adams “was embarking on a run for New York City mayor, he joined Martha Stewart at a gala celebrating Turkish Airlines — a company now caught up in an ongoing FBI probe into Adams’ campaign finances. At the event, Adams was photographed holding hands with two company officials over a sheet cake; after winning the mayor’s race, he appointed one of those officials — Cenk Ocal — to his transition team.” The CNN reported that on Nov. 2, the home of a Turkish Airlines executive was among the locations raided by the FBI.

    POLITICO’s analysis of Adams’ Brooklyn Borough schedules turned up three mentions of the Turkish airlines: Two planned banquets celebrating the carrier in 2019 and 2020, and a cryptic entry on Oct. 2, 2015 that simply read: “Reschedule 4 p.m. Turkish airline. Rana [Abbasova] my gifts.”

    Daniel Nigro, then New York City Fire Commissioner, was pressured by Adams to permit, despite safety concerns, the opening of a high-rise building that housed the Turkish consulate, just in time for the arrival of Pres. Erdogan. Nigro received a grand jury subpoena and spoke to FBI agents.

    After becoming Mayor last year, Adams made virtual remarks at a real estate conference in Istanbul, which was attended by two top city officials. However, the Mayor’s participation was left out of his daily public schedule and not reported.

    In addition to the home of the fundraiser for the Mayor’s campaign, the FBI raided or conducted interviews at a dozen locations as part of its investigations of campaign contributions from Turkish sources, CNN reported.

    In 2022, “Adams took two trips to Turkey — one in August funded by multiple entities including the Turkish consulate, according to a financial disclosure obtained by POLITICO. Local news outlet THE CITY recently reported Turkish Airlines also chipped in for that trip, but that was omitted from the required annual disclosure. Four months later, the financial disclosure shows, an organization called the Association of Young Tourism Leaders funded another trip to Turkey for Adams. The junkets were among a half-dozen trips the mayor has said he made to the country, including a 2017 sojourn with his son, Jordan,” according to POLITICO.

    While visiting Turkey as Brooklyn Borough President, Adams said that he was interested in buying a house in Istanbul, according to the Turkish Sabah newspaper. Adams also said that he is so satisfied with Turkish Airlines that he not only uses that carrier to fly to Turkey, but also to other parts of the world, like India.

  • After Scrutinizing NYC Mayor’s Campaign, FBI is Delving into his Links to Turkey

    After Scrutinizing NYC Mayor’s Campaign, FBI is Delving into his Links to Turkey

    The FBI has now expanded its investigation of the alleged illegal fundraising links between New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ campaign and Turkish officials and individuals.

    I reported last week that the FBI had raided the home of the Mayor’s campaign fundraiser, seizing three iPhones, two computers and various files. Boyd Johnson, an attorney retained by Adams, said that after the raid, “it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly.”

    Since then, the FBI unexpectedly stopped the Mayor in the street and took his two cellphones and iPad, after obtaining a search warrant from the court. The FBI copied the contents of his electronic devices and returned them to the Mayor. Adams cancelled a planned trip to Puerto Rico to attend an important political conference.

    There are three significant aspects to this latest development:

    1)    The Federal Government is getting closer to investigating the personal links between the Mayor and Turkish officials and individuals who may have made illegal contributions to his political campaign.

    2)    In order to obtain a search warrant from the court, the FBI had to present to the judge credible evidence of possible wrongdoing by the Mayor or his campaign. A similar warrant was obtained from court before searching the home of the Mayor’s fundraiser last week.

    3)    The reason the Mayor was unexpectedly stopped in the street to take his electronic devices was to prevent him from having the opportunity to delete or alter information on his devices.

    The New York Times reported on Nov. 12, 2023, that the FBI is “examining whether Adams cleared Red Tape for the Turkish government.” According to the news report, “after winning the 2021 Democratic Mayoral primary, Eric Adams successfully pressed [New York] city officials to allow the opening of a Manhattan high-rise building housing the Turkish Consulate.”

    The New York Times revealed that “the Federal authorities are investigating whether Mayor Eric Adams weeks before his election two years ago, pressured New York Fire Department officials to sign off on the Turkish government’s new high-rise consulate in Manhattan despite safety concerns with the building, three people with knowledge of the matter said.”

    The New York Times added: “After winning the Democratic mayoral primary in July, Adams contacted then-Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro in late summer 2021 and urged him to allow the Turkish government to occupy the building at least on a temporary basis. The building had yet to open because fire officials had cited safety issues and declined to sign off on its occupancy, the people said…. The building is still operating under a temporary certificate of occupancy, records show.”

    The Mayor’s intervention made it possible for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “to preside over the grand opening of the $300 million, 35-story tower on his September 2021 visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly, despite numerous flaws in its fire safety system, according to the people familiar with the matter and city records,” according to The New York Times.

    “The federal criminal inquiry has focused at least in part on whether Adams’ 2021 campaign conspired with the Turkish government, including its consulate general in New York, to illegally funnel foreign money into its coffers, according to a search warrant obtained by The New York Times for an F.B.I. search this month of the home of the mayor’s chief fund-raiser…. Adams’ ties to the Turkish government and community stretch back years. As Brooklyn borough president, he actively wooed wealthy members of the Turkish community in south Brooklyn. In August 2015, the Turkish consulate in New York paid for Adams’ airfare, hotel and ground transportation for a trip to Turkey, according to financial disclosure records. There, Adams signed a sister-city agreement with Istanbul’s Uskudar municipality, one of several he executed with foreign cities he traveled to as borough president. He also visited Bahcesehir University, founded by the same Turkish philanthropist who founded Bay Atlantic University in Washington, D.C.,” The New York Times reported.

    Furthermore, the FBI is investigating “the role of KSK Construction, a Brooklyn building company owned by Turkish immigrants that organized a fund-raising event for Adams on May 7, 2021. On that day, 48 donors, including the company’s owners, employees and their families, along with others in the construction and real estate industries, donated $43,600, Adams’ campaign reports show. Those contributions enabled him to obtain another $48,000 in public matching funds for a total of nearly $92,000,” according to The New York Times.

    Three American members of the board of the Turken Foundation, which was founded by Bilal Erdogan, the son of President Erdogan, donated $6,000 to Adams’ campaign between 2018 and 2021, according to The City website. The foundation is registered as a foreign agent with the U.S. Department of Justice.

    Oddly, Eric Adams, then-Brooklyn borough president, played himself in a 2017 Turkish romantic comedy film, ‘Fairytale of New York,’ where two Turkish men ask him for political favors but he says he can’t understand them. Adams tells the Turks in the film: “Brooklyn loves Turkey. Brooklyn is the Istanbul of America. We love your food, we love your music, but I don’t understand Turkish, we can take a selfie though.”

  • FBI Investigates Links Between NYC Mayor’s Campaign and Turkey

    FBI Investigates Links Between NYC Mayor’s Campaign and Turkey

    Mayor of New York City Eric Adams seems to have a special affinity for Azerbaijan and Turkey. We will soon find out if that special relationship has overstepped the bounds of legality.

    A year ago, I wrote an article about Mayor Adams who notoriously had declared: “After I retire from government, I’m going to live in Baku.”

    The New York Daily News published an article in 2021 under the title: “NYC mayoral candidate Eric Adams accepted foreign travel to countries with a history of corruption.” The article disclosed that “Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has accepted thousands of dollars in travel and other perks from China, Turkey and Azerbaijan, three countries with a well-documented history of suppressing their citizens.”

    Adams recently acknowledged that he had traveled to Turkey eight times. In August 2023, he boasted during a Turkish flag-raising ceremony in Manhattan that there were probably no other mayors in New York City history who had visited Turkey as frequently as he has. In August 2015, the Turkish government paid thousands of dollars for then-Brooklyn Borough president Adams to visit Turkey for six days where he signed a sister city agreement with Istanbul’s Uskudar district. The Turkish consulate paid up to $4,999 for his airfare, hotel stay and ground transportation, according to Adams’ disclosure with the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB). The New York Daily News reported that in 2016, “Azerbaijan’s tourism ministry paid up to $4,999 for Adams to visit its capital Baku for four days, according to the borough president’s COIB disclosure.” Adams has held fundraising events for his campaign in the Azeri and Turkish restaurants Baku Palace and Ali Baba in New York City. On Sept. 19, 2023, Mayor Adams attended an event hosted by President Erdogan’s wife Emine at the Turkish House in New York City.

    Last Thursday, 10 FBI agents raided the home of the Mayor’s chief fundraiser, Brianna Suggs, to investigate “whether Mayor Eric Adams’s 2021 election campaign conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal foreign donations, according to a search warrant obtained by The New York Times.” The 2025 reelection campaign of Adams paid Suggs’ company nearly $100,000 for fund-raising and campaign consulting services.

    “Investigators sought to learn more about the potential involvement of a Brooklyn construction company with ties to Turkey, as well as a small university in Washington, D.C., that also has ties to the country and to Mr. Adams,” the NYT reported. “According to the search warrant, investigators were also focused on whether the mayor’s campaign kicked back benefits to the [KSK] construction company’s officials and employees, and to Turkish officials.” The City news website reported that 84 donors, most of them employees of KSK Construction Group, whose founders are from Turkey, had contributed over $69,000 to the Mayor’s campaign. However, “multiple people listed in Adams 2021 campaign donation records as KSK employees either said they did not donate to Eric Adams or refused to state whether they had ever donated,” The City reported.

    During last Thursday’s raid, the FBI searched for records of travel to Turkey and documents linking the government of that country and its intermediaries to the Adams campaign, seizing three iPhones, two computers and various files from Suggs’ home. Investigators also sought documents regarding Bay Atlantic University, a Turkish-owned university in Washington, D.C. that opened in 2014. In 2015, Adams “visited one of the school’s sister universities in Istanbul, where he was given various certificates and was told that a scholarship would be created in his name,” according to the NYT.

    Last Thursday, the New York City Mayor, who had traveled to Washington, D.C. for meetings with Senior White House, Members of Congress and other mayors, abruptly cancelled his meetings and returned back to New York City the same day as the FBI raid.

    The NYT reported: “The [search] warrant suggested that some of the foreign campaign contributions were made as part of a straw donor scheme, where donations are made in the names of people who did not actually give money. Investigators sought evidence to support potential charges that included the theft of federal funds and conspiracy to steal federal funds, wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy, as well as campaign contributions by foreign nationals and conspiracy to make such contributions.”

    In July, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted seven individuals who fundraised for the Mayor’s 2021 campaign on multiple counts, including conspiracy and bribe-taking and conspiracy to funnel illegal donations, according to the NYT.

    The FBI investigation has not targeted Adams personally. He said that he “had no clear knowledge, direct or indirect, of any improper fundraising activity — and certainly not of any foreign money.”

    But if it is proven that he had conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal campaign funds, the Mayor may have to retire in Baku or Istanbul much earlier than he expected.