FBI focus on Adams’ Turkey travels in campaign…

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FBI focus on Adams’ Turkey travels in campaign finance probe, but questions
about details remain

Mayor Eric Adams is pictured during a press conference at City Hall on Tuesday, November 28, 2023. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News)

By Michael Gartland | mgartland@nydailynews.com | New York Daily News

PUBLISHED: November 28, 2023 at 1:18 p.m. | UPDATED: November 28, 2023 at 1:50 p.m.

One of the threads federal investigators are tugging at in their probe of Mayor Adams’ 2021 campaign
and its connections to Turkey is his travel to that Middle Eastern country over the years, sources
confirmed to the Daily News.

Adams has said he traveled to Turkey up to seven times, but he’s offered little detail about what what
he did there — nor is it clear exactly what the feds are looking for in this aspect of their probe.

While details of four of Adams’ Turkey trips have been reported in the media to date, a fifth planned
trip whose details have not been previously reported involves Adams promoting so-called “smart
canes” for blind people, according to a September 2018 video Adams appears in that was reviewed by
The News.

Adams first trip to Turkey, he revealed last week, was during his tenure as a state Senator .

“Iactually traveled to Turkey for the first time as a state senator when I went over to Azerbaijan and to
Baku with a Senate delegation,” he said. “We just picked up one day and said, ‘Hey, let’s go to Turkey.'”

Mayor Eric Adams is pictured during a press conference at City Hall on Tuesday, November 28, 2023. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily
News)

Whether he engaged in any official business on that first trip — and who paid his freight — is unclear.
The mayor has said he’s footed the bill for all his personal travel over the years, and he has not been
accused of any wrongdoing in connection with the current federal probe.

Traveling to Turkey on that trip with a “Senate delegation,” as Adams said last week, suggests he was in
Azerbaijan or Turkey on official business, but there is no record showing he reported the trip on
financial disclosure forms from his time as a state senator.

Another statement Adams made reveals there was a recreational element to a trip to Baku in 2012,
according to a 2014 report by Azer News, an Azerbaijan-focused outlet. According to that outlet,
Adams was there to watch a “Eurovision song contest.”

On Tuesday, Adams was asked to clarify the situation. He described the trip to Turkey that he revealed
last week as “personal” in nature. He then said “we will look at our Senate records” and alluded to a
trip he took while in the Senate with Assembly members Steven Cymbrowitz and Alec Brook-Krasny
— a trip that Adams said was government funded.

“I’ll look at the record,” the mayor said, adding that if the trip wasn’t reported, it was an “oversight.”

“We’ll find out how we can modify it if that was the case,” he said.

Inaddition to that trip, Adams’ financial disclosure forms show he traveled to Turkey twice in 2015
during his tenure as Brooklyn borough president.

He’s also publicly stated he traveled there in 2017 with his son Jordan Coleman — a 21-day vacation
he described last Tuesday as “one of the most joyful times of my life.”

This photo, released by Office of the New York Mayor, shows New York Mayor Eric Adams, center, as he participates in the Turkish
flag raising ceremony, in New York, Oct. 29, 2022. (Mayoral Photography Office/Ed Reed via AP)

There is no public record of Adams traveling to Turkey during his nearly two years as mayor. A
spokesman for the mayor referred questions about this travel abroad to the office of Brooklyn
Borough President Antonio Reynoso. The News has submitted several public records requests to
Brooklyn Borough Hall.

Inaddition to his foreign travel, the federal investigation has also focused on donations Adams’ 2021
campaign received that potentially have ties to the Turkish government. Some of the political
contributions that have sparked the feds’ interest include money the campaign received from
employees at KSK Construction , a company led by Turkish immigrant Erden Arkan.

Investigators are also probing messages Adams sent to former FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro on
behalf of Reyhan Özgür, Turkey’s consul general in New York. In 2021, Özgür sought Adams’ help to
resolve fire safety issues around the then-under-construction Turkish Consulate in advance of a
ribbon cutting that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attended.

This photo, released by Office of the New York Mayor, shows New York Mayor Eric Adams, right, visiting the Turkish Consulate
General building and shaking hands with Reyhan Özgür, Turkey’s consul general in New York, in New York City on May 22, 2023.
(Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office via AP)

Then there are the trips to Turkey.

When asked last week to provide information about all of his Turkey travel, the mayor at first agreed
to do so, but then said “maybe” he would .

Of the trips that have been reported publicly so far, the Turkish consulate, Turkish Airlines and
Bahgesehir University in Turkey helped fund at least one from August 2015 — details first reported by
the news outlet The City .

According to correspondence between the city Conflicts of Interest Board and the borough
president’s office at the time, Adams planned to go on that trip with his then-special counsel, Ama
Dwimoh; Adams aide Rana Abbasova, who acted as Adams’ translator in a volunteer capacity at the
time; and Adams’ confidante and current senior adviser Tim Pearson.

Adams’ fifth planned trip to Turkey in Nov. 2018 was connected to his involvement with the Young
Guru Academy and the “smart canes” that group developed but little else is known about the trip.
,

In a video the group posted on Facebook in September 2018, Adams, who was then serving as
Brooklyn borough president, said he planned to travel to Turkey in Nov. 2018 and praised the group
for its work with the blind.

But it isn’t clear if Adams ever went on that trip, and his press team declined to answer questions
about it and other aspects of Adams’ travel to Turkey.

Around the same time Adams said he’d meet up with Young Guru Academy, in Jan. 2019, Fox 5 NY
reported that Adams’ office “purchased a number of the $395 WeWalk canes through a grant and will
be testing them out through partner organizations Helen Keller Services for the Blind and the
Lighthouse Guild, as well as with the MTA, which will test its functions in their various transit systems.”

It’sunclear where that grant originated or how much it was worth. The borough president’s office has
not provided any information around it.

The MTA’s involvement in the program also remains unclear. At the time, one website reported that
the MTA was “interested” in the canes.

But when contacted by The News about it recently, that agency claimed to have no knowledge it was a
so-called “partner” with Adams’ office on the canes.

“Generally, the MTA does not seek solutions that require hardware per customer,” MTA
spokeswoman Kayla Shults told The News. “Projects are intended to help anyone and everyone, and
we neither funded nor formally tested ‘smart canes.’”

With Chris Sommerfeldt

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2023 November 28

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