Trump’s Plan Comes Into Focus: Make America Corrupt Again

Give Eric Adams some credit: He put his back into this one. Once the Mayor of New York was indicted on bribery and conspiracy charges, the man and his legal team worked overtime to get Donald Trump to somehow overturn the case. 

Adams was indicted in late September for allegedly doing favors for the Turkish government as payback for illegal campaign donations and travel perks. Almost instantly, he started floating Trump-friendly conspiracy theories that the prosecution was a Joe Biden revenge plot. He stood up for then-candidate Trump when his opponent dared to call him a fascist. Adams has now reportedly directed his subordinates to only say nice things in public about the president — anything, really, for the Don. 

On Monday night, Trump returned the favor, when his Justice Department ordered prosecutors in Manhattan to drop their charges against the mayor, two months before he was set to go to trial. This get-out-of-jail card isn’t free, though. It practically demands that Adams implement Trump’s deportation agenda, and it leaves open the possibility that Adams could be charged again if he doesn’t go along with the program. 

Legal observers tell me they’ve never seen a deal quite like it before. And while Adams may have been the most obvious and immediate beneficiary, he’s not the only one. If you’re a foreign government or a corrupt company trying to turn a public official into your toady, Monday’s move sends a powerful signal — one of many — that America is open for business. Everything and everyone is up for sale. Just name your price, and start the negotiation.

That might sound a little over-the-top, especially when the case against Adams felt a little small, if cut-and-dry. Adams is alleged to have fixed some fire permits in exchange for some first-class flights and a bunch of straw donations. Icky, but happens all the time, right? Well, no. And also, the directive to drop Adams’ case can’t be viewed in isolation. 

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Last week, Trump’s new Attorney General Pam Bondi disbanded the corporate enforcement unit of DOJ’s National Security Division — the prosecutors who went after the people stealing company secrets on behalf of China, or illicitly financing Russia’s war in Ukraine. She also broke up the task force that seized the yachts of Russian oligarchs, or busted them for violating global sanctions. At the same time, she killed a 50-person task force, established during the first Trump administration, to investigate covert foreign influence — attempts to steer U.S. policy through clandestine means. (Think of the $10 million that a Kremlin-backed media operation steered to MAGA influencers in last year’s election.) “It’s now a free for all for foreign intel services,” former head of FBI counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi told NBC News. 

And if Bondi has her way, criminal investigations like the one that exposed that $10 million influencer network will be a thing of the past. Last week, Bondi ordered prosecutors to dramatically scale back their investigations of violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. That’s the law, passed after World War II, when the Nazis got a bunch of Congressmen to secretly push their agenda. The idea was to stop that kind of covert propaganda. 

The law lay dormant for decades, until 2016’s election interference. Since then, FARA prosecutions had gone through the roof. This new Bondi directive stops all that. Remember the case against Pras, the Fugees’ rapper, for acting as an agent of China? Some of those charges likely wouldn’t have happened under Bondi’s new rules. Or the one against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who got all those gold bars in exchange for doing favors for the Egyptian government? Or the one involving Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who allegedly took $600,000 to covertly do the business of Azerbaijan? Same. Gone. 

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Criminal FARA probes from now on, Bondi wrote, “shall be limited to instances of alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.” But we already have laws and lawyers to stop secret-stealing and the like. FARA is for something different. 

Perhaps this is the moment when I should mention the attorney general herself was, until recently, a registered foreign lobbyist for the government of Qatar — earning a rather nice salary of $115,000-per-month. And that Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, was also working for the Qatari government, but without bothering to register. And that on Monday, Trump sacked the head of the Office of Government Ethics. 

The last time he was president, Donald Trump took in $8 million or so in direct payments from 20 foreign governments. During his last campaign, he asked oil and gas executives for $1 billion in exchange for rolling back Joe Biden’s environmental policies; he also told donors he would immediately approve new pipelines and speed up oil company mergers. For his second inaugural, he celebrated by launching a meme coin that seems to outside experts to be tailor-made for foreign payoffs. And let’s not forget the $2 billion Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser got from the Saudi government for his investment fund. Corruption has never been antithetical to the Trump brand, and it surely isn’t now. 

Now his Justice Department is making moves so that everyone can get in on the fun — if they stay loyal. On Monday, Trump pardoned disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was sent to jail for trying to sell Barack Obama’s old Senate seat. Trump also signed an executive order directing his new attorney general, Bondi, to “pause” enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — the law that forbids Americans from bribing foreign officials. “It’s going to mean a lot more business for America,” the president said.

Then there’s the Adams situation. The indictment was supposed to be just the appetizer in a full-course meal, one of five federal investigations into Adams and his inner circle. The bigger federal case, many observers felt, was the one out of Brooklyn, where a Chinese billionaire had already pleaded guilty to giving straw donations to Adams. The one where there was strong evidence of a wider scheme of straw donations, orchestrated by a top fundraiser with ties to Beijing. A memo from Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove effectively stops all of these probes (even though it’s addressed only to the prosecutors in Manhattan). In it, Bove “block[s] further targeting of Mayor Adams or additional investigative steps.” 

Adams’ lawyer Alex Spiro, in a statement, crowed that “the Department of Justice has re-evaluated this case and determined it should not go forward.” But there’s more to Bove’s memo. It “defers to the U.S. Attorney’s Office at this time” about “the strength of the evidence” in the case. In other words, Bove is admitting, at least provisionally, that the initial prosecution was solid. He’s also holding open the possibility that the cases could get revived, maybe if Adams gets crosswise with Team Trump.

“In theory, there’s nothing preventing the U.S. Attorney’s office from filing new charges in November,” says Arlo Devlin-Brown, a former chief of the public corruption unit at the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

There are things Trump and his team clearly want in return for holding those prosecutors at bay. In his memo, Bove ordered Adams’ case to be dropped so the mayor could “devote [his] full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior administration.” 

Last week, City Hall issued a draft memo directing public school and migrant shelters to let ICE agents onto their properties without a warrant “if, at any time, you reasonably feel threatened or fear for your safety.” That appeared to be at odds with current local laws, which all-but-forbid cooperation with ICE on the enforcement of purely civil matters, like immigration status. Adams’ administration released updated guidance on Monday that hew more closely to the previous legal standards. But the day’s events left critics like mayoral candidate Zellnor Myrie wondering, “What was this mayor willing to give up? Which New Yorkers was he willing to sell?” Public corruption is often viewed as a victimless crime. Not if the price for Adams’ exoneration winds up being paid by immigrant kids.

Trump and his team have previously mocked the “thirsty” mayor for going to any and all lengths to avoid a conviction. Earlier on Monday, according to local news site The City, Adams took things to another level. He ordered local officials not to publicly criticize Trump in any way — and not to interfere with immigration enforcement.

That’s the thing about corrupt bargains. There are always more strings attached to the deal.