FBI Investigating Adams Campaign Donations Tied to Turkey

Authorities searched the home of a fundraiser for the mayor as part of a larger inquiry into whether the Adams campaign received illegal donations.

On Thursday, the FBI conducted a raid on the home of a member of Mayor Eric Adams’s campaign as part of a larger investigation into potentially illegal donations from a foreign nation.

The New York Times reports that the FBI raided the home of Brianna Suggs, a campaign consultant with close ties to Adams. Suggs was also reportedly questioned by an agent as they executed the search warrant at her Crown Heights residence and was given a subpoena to later testify before a Manhattan grand jury. It’s unclear to what extent Adams is or is not involved in the matters pertaining to Thursday’s search.

The FBI along with Manhattan federal prosecutors are reportedly investigating whether Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign plotted with the Turkish government to use straw donors to direct foreign dollars to the campaign, per the Times. The inquiry also concerns KSK Construction Company, a Brooklyn-based construction company with connections to Turkey. Particularly, law enforcement is looking into whether company employees received kickbacks from the campaign in any way.

According to CNN, files, phones and computers were taken from Suggs’s home and that additional search warrants were executed at the construction company as well as several other homes.

The City reports that donations to the campaign from KSK Construction had previously been flagged by city regulators as questionable numerous times. Several company employees who were listed as donors in campaign filings told the outlet that they had never donated to Adams before.

Before news of the raid had broken, Adams had puzzled observers Thursday morning when he suddenly canceled a publicized series of meetings in Washington, D.C., concerning the migrant crisis, prompting a quick return flight for the mayor and his team. Not long after Adams flew out, City Hall announced that the mayor’s meetings had been canceled and that he was returning to the city to “deal with a matter,” per NY1. The decision was clearly abrupt; Adams had posted about his travel just before 8 a.m., urging his Twitter followers to “follow along throughout the day.”

At an unrelated event held at Gracie Mansion Thursday night, Adams gave his first comments on the raid, saying that he intends to fully participate in any inquiry and that he returned from D.C. to “be on the ground.”

“I hold my campaign to the highest ethical standards,” he said.

Suggs does have a long history with the mayor, though. According to her LinkedIn profile, she began as an administrative intern in his Brooklyn borough president office and rose to be a special liaison and women’s health analyst. She later worked as a director of logistics and fundraiser on his 2021 mayoral campaign, where, she says on LinkedIn, she helped raise $18.4 million for both the primary and general elections. Her current position is listed as a fundraiser for the Kings County Democratic County Committee.

This is not the first time that her fundraising activities have drawn scrutiny. In April, the Daily News reported that Suggs had solicited donations for Adams’s mayoral campaign while being paid by a Manhattan property owner to lobby the administration at the same time. Her actions likely didn’t violate any official laws or statutes, but they raised questions about the propriety of holding both roles simultaneously.

For his part, Adams has made a point of highlighting the relationship he’s built with Turkey and the city’s Turkish population over the length of his career. Adams traveled to Turkey in 2015 while he was borough president, an excursion that was paid for by the Turkish consulate and a group called the World Tourism Foundation, per his disclosures. Just last week at a flag-raising ceremony for the nation, Adams seemed to boast about the number of times he’s been to Turkey compared to his predecessors.

“I’m probably the only mayor in the history of this city that has not only visited Turkey once, but I think I’m on my sixth or seventh visit to Turkey,” he said.