There is no grand conspiracy to prosecute Biden critics. Crimes are simply illegal. – Mother Jones

On Wednesday evening, As prosecutors prepared to file a five-count indictment against New York Mayor Eric Adams for allegedly recruiting and receiving illegal foreign campaign contributions and favors for the Turkish government, the first-term Democrat released a statement giving investigators a great conspiracy accused of their own.

“When the federal government did nothing because its broken immigration policies were overwhelming our protection system,” Adams said in a recorded speech somewhere at Gracie Mansion, “he put the people of New York above party and politics.” Adams suggested that the investigation and the subsequent criminal charges were an act of retaliation from above. “I have been confronted with these lies for months,” he said, “since I started advocating for all of you.”

Adams — who has now maintained his innocence on all charges — suggested that he was being prosecuted by the Biden regime, in other words, simply for telling the truth about immigration.

This is wrong at the most basic level. According to the New York Timesthe investigation began before Adams became mayor “and continued in secret until last fall.” Adams’ major break with the Biden administration over the refugee crisis — which eventually led to him traveling to Mexico to encourage residents , no longer coming to “Puebla York” – came long after he took office. (At first, Adams preferred to criticize Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for busing tens of thousands of migrants into the city, although Abbott only began sending buses after Adams falsely blamed him.)

To the extent that there is any connection between the investigation and the city’s handling of the influx of migrants, Adams’ focus on the investigation has directly impacted his ability to do his job. When the FBI raided his fundraiser home last November, Adams was on his way to a long-awaited meeting at the White House. According to the indictment, the employee called the mayor five times before answering her door. Adams canceled his White House meeting and returned to New York to deal with the fallout.

Yet a lack of factual basis has never stopped this New York Postwhich scrubbed Adams’ apology with the words “I’m a target” spray-painted in extra-large font on the cover.

Others have since adopted the Adams line. “It sounds like your life can be ruined if you don’t align yourself with the Biden family, this White House, this administration or the top Democrats,” Ainsley Earhardt continued Fox and friends on Thursday, conveniently ignoring the Justice Department’s recent prosecution of President Biden’s son.

Trump-backed hedge financier Bill Ackman, who never remained silent when something was an option, expressed support for Adams’ “bravery” on immigration, adding: “I’m even more skeptical when charges are brought against someone whose views .” will not be welcomed by the responsible party.”

On Thursday evening, Trump himself made the comparison as directly as possible at a press conference in Trump Tower. Per Politico:

I saw him about a year ago talking about how the illegal immigrants are hurting our city and how the federal government should pay us and we wouldn’t have to take them in. And I said, you know what? Charges will be brought against him within a year. And I was exactly right. Because that’s what we have – we have people who are using the Justice Department and the FBI on an unprecedented scale.

This is almost not true in any way. For one thing, many of the migrants Adams complained about came to the United States seeking asylum. Their special legal status has made the job logistically more difficult for bureaucrats. But Trump is aiming at something important: The indictment of Adams is particularly bitter for the right, because the story Adams has been telling for more than a year is one on which many conservatives are betting their 2024 election fortunes.

Although Adams is a Democrat who supported Harris, he represents something powerful for the MAGA movement — a leader of a diverse and overwhelmingly Democratic-voting city who morphed into JD Vance in the face of an influx of migrants. Like Vance, Adams has said that newcomers are boosting violent crime in a community where violent crime has actually declined. Like Vance, he viewed the arrival of migrants as an existential threat to a way of life. If the arrival of new residents didn’t slow down, he said at a town hall last year, they would “destroy New York.” Adams is the most prominent example of what these conservatives really believe: once you experience what they experienced, you will see what they see. It’s the old Barry Goldwater saying: Deep down you know he’s right.

Republicans want to make this a story about Eric Adams and immigration. But in doing so, they create a very different kind of story – one that also says something important about this political moment. With so many of its biggest figures themselves indicted, the MAGA movement needs tortured logic to continue. If the state takes action against you for civil or criminal offenses, that must be a sign that you actually did something right. This belief in a vast conspiracy is the foundation of Trump’s third campaign.

But the Adams indictment, like many of the lawsuits and criminal cases in which Trump has ended up as a defendant, actually suggests a far less paranoid alternative: when the state comes after you because you accepted tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of favors from a human being If you are a company controlled by the Turkish government, this could be a sign that you have actually done something wrong.

The problem for Trump and Adams is that many people see through this. One doesn’t need to conjure up images of a scheming and sinister Joe Biden to figure out why the mayor, wanting to be paid in Bitcoin, got city jobs for his friends and family and spent much of his waking hours holding court behind a restaurant someone in the legal crosshairs. Since taking office – 31 years after God promised him – Adams has walked around with a large, flashing sign that reads, “Examine Me.” No one was really surprised that the charges were brought. People were betting on when it would fall. Adams could still fight the charges or provide exculpatory evidence — perhaps after he remembers the six-digit passcode for the cell phone the feds seized long ago. But there’s no point in looking for a sinister explanation if he doesn’t. Because despite what Adams and Trump may say, sometimes a crook is just a crook — and a crime is just a crime.