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Luxe suites and salted ducks: Can posh gifts buy foreign influence in America?
Federal prosecutors take aim at what they allege are attempts to buy influence in the halls of American power.
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New York City Mayor Eric Adams arriving at Manhattan federal court on Sept 27 for his arraignment after he was charged over allegedly helping the Turkish government.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
Joe Miller
Nanjing-style salted ducks, delivered to the parents of a governmental aide in New York. Luxury handbags and Michelin-starred sushi dinners purchased for a former intelligence analyst in Washington. A complimentary stay in a marble-floored penthouse suite in a swanky Istanbul hotel for an ambitious New York City politician. And a gleaming Mercedes-Benz C300 convertible, gifted to the wife of a US senator in New Jersey.
These are among the many colourful alleged kickbacks detailed in a series of recent indictments by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), as part of a crackdown by prosecutors on what they say are attempts by foreign officials to buy influence in the halls of American power. They are also at the centre of a legal fight over the line between legitimate gifts and illegal bribes.
