Adams is just the latest pol caught at the trough in the United States of Global Graft

Mayor Adams’ corruption indictment involving the government of Turkey seems like weak tea compared to other recent scandals. 

But it also indicates just how intertwined America’s ruling class has become with foreign governments — and foreign money.

Adams is charged with getting over $120,000 in business-class international air travel and other perks from Turkey, while accepting campaign donations from illegal foreign sources — and getting public matching funds on that basis.

Prosecutors allege he used his authority to perform various favors for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s regime in return.

(Adams asserts, plausibly, that the prosecution is payback for his criticism of Biden-Harris immigration policies — though that doesn’t mean he’s not guilty — and that the Turkish goodies were merely “gratuities.”)

But Adams isn’t even the tip of the iceberg: He’s more like one of the little frozen chunks floating around it. 

Because in truth, American politics, all the way to the top, is riddled with corruption and foreign cash on a scale that dwarfs Hizzoner’s alleged misdeeds.

Across the Hudson, the trial of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) revealed an extravaganza of gold bars and envelopes full of cash (along with a Mercedes and, weirdly, basement carpeting) in exchange for favors. 

This was after a previous jury deadlocked on an earlier set of charges against Menendez involving gifts and trips to the Dominican Republic.

Menendez resigned from the Senate after being convicted of federal bribery charges for acting as an agent of the Egyptian government.

Hunter Biden’s ties with the Ukrainian firm Burisma and a number of Chinese companies are well-known — as are the allegations that Joe Biden was a direct beneficiary.  

An analysis of Hunter’s laptop and other documents revealed he raked in at least $11 million from those and other shady overseas sources between 2013 and 2018.

Just this week, we learned that whistleblowers from within the Department of Homeland Security have raised serious concerns about Kamala’s running mate Tim Walz’s numerous visits to China while a member of the US military, and his expressed admiration for China’s communist system. 

You can’t make this stuff up, and sadly you don’t have to.

Meanwhile, the Brooklyn US Attorney’s Office has over the last four years brought a dozen cases involving covert Chinese influence in American government and institutions.

A secret Chinese police station even operated for a while out of a building in Manhattan.

Linda Sun, a former aide to Gov. Hochul (D-NY), has been charged with serving as a Chinese government agent, pushing PRC policies in Albany and working against Taiwanese officials in exchange for large sums of money and periodic deliveries of salted duck.

(Hey, it’s a delicacy). 

She allegedly prevented New York state from denouncing the Chinese genocide of the Uyghurs.

China’s approach has been called “geostrategic corruption,” which it uses around the globe, not just in the United States. 

But it certainly does use it quite extensively here.

And other countries are apparently following China’s lead: Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) has been charged with taking money from a Mexican bank and a state-owned Azerbaijani oil company to push favorable policies in Congress.

It seems you can’t turn over a rock at just about any level of our government without finding some kind of foreign influence at play  — it’s “just the way business is done” nowadays.

But why is that?

Perhaps it’s that the world is so much more interconnected: Fifty years ago, China had few links to the United States. 

A Clinton-era initiative made it a major trading partner, opening up many more avenues for interaction — and graft.  

At the same time, American politics became more open to influence.

Party organizations have weakened, the end of the Cold War eased interactions with historical adversaries, and big money took an increasing role in politics, and in American social hierarchies generally. 

A partisan press has soft-pedaled scandals among favored politicians — see its handling of the Biden family’s questionable business dealings. 

And complaints about money from overseas can easily be deflected with bogus claims that the charges are racist or based on cultural stereotypes. 

(Recall how such accusations stifled the — accurate — suspicions that COVID-19 originated in a Chinese lab.)

But while the normalization of payola may be lucrative for our ruling class, it’s a major vulnerability for the rest of us. 

A more interconnected world is also a world in which more potential adversaries will try to take advantage.

Israel decimated Hezbollah by transforming its trusted devices, like pagers and walkie-talkies, into instruments of doom.

Foreign money may be doing the same thing to the United States, turning trusted politicians and institutions against our best interests.

It needs to be stopped.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a professor of law at the University of Tennessee and founder of the InstaPundit.com blog.