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The fundraiser, a 25-year-old former intern named Brianna Suggs, has not spoken publicly since the raid.
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Adams responded to news of the raid by abruptly returning from Washington, where he had only just arrived for a day of meetings with White House and congressional leaders regarding the migrant influx, an issue he has said threatens to “destroy New York City”.
He said his immediate return was driven by his desire to be present for his team, and out of concern for Suggs, who he said had gone through a “traumatic experience”.
“Although I am mayor, I have not stopped being a man and a human,” he said.
But he also said he did not speak with Suggs on the day of the raid, to avoid any appearance of interfering in an ongoing investigation.
The warrant obtained by the FBI to search Suggs’ home sought evidence of a conspiracy to violate campaign finance law between members of Adams’ campaign, the Turkish government or Turkish nationals, and a Brooklyn-based construction company, KSK Construction, whose owners are originally from Turkey. The warrant also sought records about donations from Bay Atlantic University, a Washington, DC, college whose founder is Turkish and is affiliated with a school Adams visited when he went to Turkey as Brooklyn borough president in 2015.
The warrant, reviewed by The New York Times, indicated authorities were looking at whether the Turkish government or Turkish nationals funnelled donations to Adams using a so-called straw donor scheme, in which the contributors listed were not the actual source of the money. The warrant also inquired about Adams’ campaign’s use of New York City’s generous public matching program, in which the city offers an 8-to-1 match of the first $US250 of a resident’s donation.
The federal authorities also sought evidence of whether any Adams campaign member provided any benefit to Turkey or the construction company in exchange for campaign donations.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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