Transcripts For MSNBC Ana Cabrera Reports 20240927

Right now on Ana Cabrera reports, we are covering several breaking reports including in new York City. Details of the sweeping Corruption Investigation in gotham. Then helene moving closer to the coast with millions in its path. Lets move to the probe looking into the trump attempted assassination, this is lieutenant John Herald with the Pennsylvania State police. Lets listen in. On friday, july 5th, the Secret Service notified psp that the former President Trump would take place or a rally would take place in butler. On monday, july 8th, i and other commanders attended the initial Planning Meeting and visited the site multiple times and completed a Psp Operation Plan leading up to July 13th. The Pennsylvania State police provided all resources requested by the Secret Service. The Secret Service did not ask me as the officer in charge of psp to post a Car Or Trooper at the Agr International proper. Nor am i aware of the Secret Service making that question to any other psp official. The State Police were assigned, performing roving patrols. Psp was not responsible for securing the Building Or Property at Agr International. The Secret Service established and managed the primary Command Post for communication. In the office of the butler Farm Show, a Psp Sergeant under my supervision was stationed in the Secret Service Command Post to relay any communication made by psp personnel to our local and federal partners. I thank you for this opportunity to provide information about the actions of the State Police and planning, staffing, responding to the tragic events at the July 13th rally. I look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you, senator herald. Now mr. Sullivan for his opening remarks. I am patrick sullivan, retired Secret Service with 23 years of service. I am a Board Member on the Secret Service association. I am speaking for myself this morning as a subject matter expert. The information that has come to light so far regarding the Security Failures in butler is shocking and infuriating. However, i am very proud of the bravery of the agents that put themselves in harms way. I served as a secret Service Agent in many investigative and protective assignments. Make no mistake, the Secret Service Cannot Function without the state and local Law Enforcement partners. I truly believe the men and women of the Secret Service have the most difficult and unforgiving job in Law Enforcement. Its a zerofail mission. I have the utmost respect for those Agents Uniformed Division officers and staff currently facing the challenges. For a president ial visit the Secret Service must provide 360degree coverage, including the sky above and ground below. Prior to July 13th, what follows is only provided for the president. Its my understanding the advanced proceedings are to protect president biden, Vice President harris and now trump. The Field Office then notifies the relevant state and local Law Enforcement and schedules a Police Meet and its at these meetings the secret Service Advance Team is introduced and learn about the trip. The Secret Service advanced team usually consist of the following. A Lead Advance, sight advance, airport, motorcade, protective intelligence, counter assault team, Counter Surveillance Unit and technical advance components to include unmanned aerial surveillance. After the counterparts are identified the police and secret Service Work together on their assignments and develop a plan for their site. They will trim the assets needed to secure the sight. The personnel doing the Cat And Sniper Advance Work closely with the local Police S. W. A. T. Personnel. The pi advance, the Site Agent reviews the Site Security Plan and presents it to the Field Office supervisor and protective Detail Supervisor for concurrence. The Lead Advance agent is responsible for ensuring all coordinated activities are in sync. Usually there will be one overall Command Post visit and there will be a Scaled Down Version of a cp. Off the record sites are handled differently than most on the record movements. The Secret Service does not know where the president intends to visit before. Additional Security Measures are put in place after the president arrives. In closing, i would like to suggest congress consider expanding the Stash Tory Authority of the Secret Service to ensure the agency can make the most informed threats possible. The Secret Service must be certificate its receiving all relevant threat information. Currently theres no statutory requirement mandating federal, state and local agencies must report to the secret Service Information concerning threats against the president over the protectees. In my opinion, the law must clearly state such information must be provided to the Secret Service to conduct an investigation and followup. For example, the fbi has exclusive jurisdiction to investigate a conspiracy to assault or kill the president before it takes place. That should be part of all such threat investigations so we can take appropriate steps to prevent an assassination. And we need to seek the assistance of any state, local and federal investigation to help investigate an Assassination Attempt after the fact. I believe the Secret Service should have similar authority to call for such assistance to prevent an attempted assassination. That concludes my opening comments. Thank you. The witness is going to be testifying over the phone, right . Okay. Dr. Goldsmith, please. My name is dr. Goldstein. On July 13th, 2024, after the attempted assassination of former President Trump, i and my staff restaffed and offered our assistance if needed. Our assistance was needed and the bodies were transferred to our office. The office was not involved in the transportation of the decedents. The following morning on july 14th, at 9 15, i began mr. Crooks autopsy with other technicians named in my report. Gunshot Residue Test samples were lifted. My involvement in the case was limited to the autopsy in which i determined that Thomas Matthew crooks died as a result of a high Variety Gunshot Wound to the head and an Entrance Wound of the left upper lip. I had no information into his motives or evidence. Once i received the results of the Toxicology Testing which was performed by our laboratory, i completed a written Autopsy Report that was signed August 5th and delivered to Butler County. Our offices involved in the case concluded on july 22nd, 2024, when mr. Crookss body was released pursuant to the Butler County coroner. Thank you, doctor. I will recognize myself for five minutes with questions. First we will show a video to get things started. The footage you are about to see is from a dashcam on July 13th. This footage has never been released to the public and has been edited to show relevant parts. The video will be time stamped in the upper righthand corner, at eight minutes after 6 00. You will see a figure circled in red crossing the roofs of multiple Agr Buildings, and this is Thomas Matthew crooks. We lose sight of crooks but 19 seconds into the video he reappears. Again, we have circled him in red before we lose sight of him 20 seconds later. We cut the video in length so it picks up at 6 10 38. Here you will see Law Enforcement around the building, and at this point all Law Enforcement Entities Staffing are aware theres an individual on the roof of the agr but do not know hes armed. Crooks turns and points a weapon in his direction. The officer falls to the ground, injuring his ankle and radios the man on the roof is armed at eleven minutes after 6 00. We know the first shot from crooks is fired just 32 seconds later. We will play the video now. This will take about 51 seconds. I realize its hard to see some of this, so crooks, as he makes his way across the roof this is, by The Way, a Pennsylvania State Police Cruiser that has the dashcam. You were able to see Things Nobody else was able to see, but i know its difficult. Lieutenant herald, i will direct the first line of questioning to you. Footage showed crooks was on the roof of the Agr Building over three minutes before shots were fired. Please describe the few minutes leading up to the shots fired from your Vantage Point. My position when the shots were fired, i was behind the stage. I Cant Answer to any questions regarding mr. Crooks on the roof because i did not have that information. I was behind the stage. It was very loud. If it was transmitted over our portables, i did not hear that. I returned to my car briefly once the former president had taken the stage to retrieve a Cell Phone that had first net. I was returning back to the stage when the first shot rang out. Officer glasgow, same question. At that time i was working my way over to the Agr Building to assist other Butler Township units with looking for crooks as i got to the Water Tower, i parked under the Water Tower and began to make my way to agr and thats when the shots rang out. Thank you. Commander lentz, you were reportedly the first to call out shots fired over the radio. Were you aware somebody was on the roof before the shots were fired . Please describe the few minutes leading up to the shots fired through your Vantage Point . Yes, i was aware through Radio Traffic there was somebody on the roof and he was armed. The first report that there was somebody on the roof came on a different Radio Channel than the tactical units were operating, and that transition was at 18 08 was somebody was on the roof. I made a Phone Call to the sergeant in the secret Service Command Center and relayed information there was a suspect on the roof of the Agr Building. There was additional Radio Traffic from the Butler Township police units, and at 18 11 03 hours, the Butler Township unit, he says hes armed, i see him and hes laying down and has a long gun. I radioed to our quick Reaction Force to deploy them to the Agr Complex to begin to address that threat. Prior to me finishing that radio transmission, you can hear the shots being fired through my open microphone. You know, i have a problem going back to the actual sighting of mr. Crooks more than once, and way, way before 11 minutes after 6 00. I think one of the things is the panel heard from different people of different times was of the thousands people that day, theres one person that stands out throughout the day and its crooks they are talking about. We knew there was somebody suspicious and we knew there was somebody they couldnt come in contact with, and we saw him with a Range Finder and doing things that were probably not in line with what people go to a rally for. At what point did somebody say were not sure the area is secure and safe . Theres not a lot of understanding before that, and The Way you all responded was incredible and thank you for that, but i cant understand of all the people, thousands of people, theres one consistent person they identify and its ultimately the shooter, so i dont believe the grounds were safe and secure that day and i am trying to understand what it was or what it would have taken for somebody to say keep mr. Trump inside until we clear this up . Commander, you and i have had not just minutes but hours together and in a couple days we will have a deep dive into what happened. Do you think the Secret Service adequately prepared you . Well, the task they had given us, two Sniper Teams and a quick Reaction Force, and we were prepared for the missions they had given us. There were additional things, obviously, that probably needed covered but they never asked us to do that and never tasked us with that, so given what they specifically asked us to do, we were certainly prepared to do that. So you did what they asked you to do, but looking back did they clearly identify what you could have been responsible for . Same question. I took my commands from Commander Lenz, and i feel i did what was requested of me from Commander Lenz. So hindsight is always 20 20. Do you think Theres Something else i believe with the information we had we did the best we can or that we could. Lieutenant herald, you feel the Secret Service adequately prepared you and your men for the event . The Secret Service, after meeting with them at the site and going through what they requested psp to do was primarily the security of the Farm Show inside the Fence Line, so adequate troopers, i had 30 troopers inside that Fence Line once the motorcade arrived and i feel like with them being the lead and we were in a request assist function, we provided what they asked for and we secured the parameter inner parameter of the Farm Show grounds. Local Law Enforcement, i think you did everything you were tasked to do that day, and looking back and looking at the game film, would you say there were probably other things we should have been clued in on. Just asking all of you, when did you first meet with Secret Service and understanding your role that day, looking back on July 13th and working backwards from that friday, thursday, wednesday, tuesday when did we get together to find out what we should do that day . So butler, our First Contact with the Secret Service was a Phone Call asking for assistance with the upcoming butler rally. We then had a police Planning Meeting. It was on july 8th, 2024, in Allegheny County. During that meeting is where they relayed the information specific to their request, and at that point for butler esu, it was two Sniper Teams and a quick Reaction Force. Where did that meeting take place . Allegheny center. I was not there because i was teaching a class, but one of our Deputy Commanders went to that meeting. Mr. Blasko . Again, from that meeting we took direction from Commander Lenz and Deputy Leaders and started to formulate a plan on what to do. The first interaction i personally had with the Secret Service was the July 11th Walk Through at the Farm Show grounds. Actually on the site . Yes, sir. Okay. That was my question, and i know you were in Allegheny County getting ready for this, and who walked the site and determined a lot of things including where the parameter should be, i think it would be supposedly there would be a lot of coordination between the local Law Enforcement and secret Service And Homeland security, and that was to prepare for that event. Thank you all for being here today and your testimony. I will now have mr. Crow ask his questions. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I served in the army before coming to congress, and one of the principles of the operations, and i am sure you are familiar that you have to have Unity Command and effective communications, and without the Unity Command and effective communications, the unit cannot operate. The Secret Service did not establish a Command Center, and appear atypical in your experience . Would there be one Command Center . Yes, thats very atypical. Normally there would be an overall Command Post for the entire visit and each site would have a Security Room with Radio Traffic pertinent to that area is controlled, and it would be the state and local police and Secret Service. Its unusual The Way it turned out at this site. Do you have a sense in this instance as to why that might occur . Are there instances where you are connected to an event you would do multiple Command Posts or can you see why that well, its a misnomer. The Secret Service always has Security Rooms at individual sites and they may be termed a Command Post but there should be just one Command Post and each site has a Communication Center where information relative to that site would be transmitted. For instance, the Airport Agents or security there really are not concerned with what is appearing at the other sites because they are concerned about the airport so theres a Security Room just for the airport site. It would be safe to say that time and speed is really important, right . The idea behind that i dont mean to put words in your mouth but if Theres Something identified as being wrong, a suspicious person, that quickly has to be communicated, right . Yeah, this is how it should happen. Protective detail is on the frequency, and post standers are on a second frequency, and the tactical teams are on the third frequency, but the other tactical teams monitor all three frequencies at the same time, so if something happens, its the Security Rooms responsibility to get on the radio and say theres an issue, remove the protectee or cover them. They have to be rock solid on protecting the President Or President ial candidate, so that frequency is for their individual movements. Based on what you know and what you heard from the Commander And Mr. Plasko, and there was a suspicious person and it drew the attention of one of the Sniper Teams that took pictures of it. If that information was effectively communicated to the fbi or if the fbi, i guess to rephrase that, Set Up a communications and Command Post to receive that information, would that have been a situation where the protectee would not have been allowed to go onstage you mean the Secret Service and not fbi . Yeah, Secret Service. The Detail Leader and Shift Agent should have been told theres an issue, were working a suspicious person. At that point it probably would be inappropriate to remove the president from the stage but the Detail Leader should know, theres an issue and i may have to react quicker. At a minimum when the suspicious person, the Detail Leader and the Shift Agent should be told theres an issue. In your experience have there been situations where you have been the on Site Agent where that has come up or pause an event or respond to something until its addressed . Yes, that has happened in my career, and i never had an situation where the president had to be removed from the stage, but there has been a situation where theres a suspicious person in the Front Row and then the Intelligence Team will come and remove that person and you dont have to interrupt the president s movements or take him off stage. I want to turn to the effective employment of snipers. It was explained its best practice for the Secret Service to Position Counter snipers from the Vantage Point of the protectee looking out. In this situation, thats where the Sniper Teams were, sitting above the platform looking out. Well, the Sniper Teams there were looking in, not looking at rooftops and not lines of sight or lines of fire, but their mission, as they were told was to look at the crowd, a crowd of several thousand people and try to identify issues within the crowd. Is that atypical . I dont know, mr. Crow, if thats atypical. I am very familiar with our Counter Sniper operations in the Secret Service and they do Set Up their position for a line of sight to the stage, so a potential assassin, what type of Shot A Potential Assassin could make at the president and counteract that. Police officers are posted in the crowd, and the theory being everybody in the crowd has been screened. It would be difficult for somebody to get a weapon inside the secured area already. The idea that there would be a gunman, and not to say its impossible, but to say there would be a gunman in the crowd, a sniper at a distance would be able to identify and take an effective shot seems unlikely . Seems highly unlikely in my opinion. Again, the threat at that point from the Counter Sniper perspective is outside the parameter in the area that is outside where the magnetometers were Set Up. To a high degree of certainly, there are probably no weapons inside the secured area. Did that mission seem unusual to you, that you were outside looking in at a screened crowd . It did not. We didnt receive any direction from the Secret Service as far as how we wanted our Sniper Teams to deploy or what they wanted our mission to be, so our snipers on normal missions they would deployed as snipers. What was your mission as you understood it that day . As we understood it, it was to deploy Sniper Teams to over watch the stage, the crowd, the Venue Area where most of the people would be gathering. Okay. Mr. Goldschmitt, you have still with us . Yes. Great. Just one brief question for you. Was the autopsy that you performed, was that in this case was that a standard autopsy in your view . What i mean by that, was there anything that stood out that was unusual or different or anything in the toxicology that stood out as unusual or different or did it all appear to be a standard autopsy . It was a standard autopsy. The only thing that would be different was we did a little bit of extra Toxicology Testing with the screening with a slightly elevated lead level. Other than that, the fbi members and State Police members, it was a standard autopsy. Pictures were taken and it was documented, so any markings and tattoos on the body, that would be evident from your report . Correct. So a slightly elevated lead levels, but nothing else stood out . Thats correct. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. I will recognize mr. Joyce for five minutes. Thank you. A lot would take place about the advanced planning that took place, and my understanding from your testimony here is you were involved with the daytoday meetings leading up to the event and at the event were led by the Secret Service, correct . Yes, sir. What was the first day you met with them and what did you discuss . Did the Secret Service, to your understanding, when they come in and take over a site, they are in charge of the site, and then they are helping you you are assisting them and you tell them where your people will be and the local folks where they will be and they are basically in charge and know those things ahead of time, where everybody will be, correct . Thats correct. Did you have an opportunity, then, to understand when the Secret Service came in that they were telling the local folks, this Counter Sniper group and i believe mr. Blasko, that there was a Sniper Team that was the Beaver County. Did they ever talk to the Beaver County Sniper Unit . Not to my knowledge. The Secret Service never talked to them . Correct. Going back to lieutenant herald, the day of or before the event, did you have a walkthrough with the Secret Service . There was a Walk Through on tuesday. It was a brief to get familiar with the property. We went back to the barracks and pulled up an image of the Farm Show on a smart Screen Tv and we drew the Fence Line, spoke a little bit. The main meeting at the site was thursday and it was with the same three secret Service Agents. I was with two other psp commanders. We walked the site starting at the main gate. We went clockwise around and looking at my Ops Plan, whenever theres a dot, there was a station patrol. Basically when we got near The End and i had everything they asked i was informed by my area one commander, if we needed additional troopers we could pull from surrounding troops, but after the requests and assignments given to us from the Secret Service, i had plenty, i had i covered all the posts and had additional roving troopers inside the venue, so that was primarily the main meeting that we had with the Secret Service on thursday, and then i completed the Ops Plan and had it out by 1400 hours On Friday. No Walk Through the day of or the day before . There was no Walk Through i spent time there On Friday incident, and there was an incident between the Secret Service and the campaign, and i live across the street so i stopped there to see what the issue was, and i stayed until 8 30 p. M. That night. I did have other interactions with the Secret Service there On Friday and even early communication with the campaign and Secret Service the morning of and during the event on July 13th. What was the issue . The issue was there was there was a campaign we didnt know who it was at first. There was a vehicle parked and one of the secret Service Agents approached this person and i think the individual was rude to the secret Service Agent and then got out of the car and just walked away, so i had a trooper there go up to the pa system, page the registered owner of the vehicle and i gave them so many minutes to return to their vehicle or i was going to tow it. Okay. Mr. Sullivan, were you ever personally on a President Protection Detail . Yes. When was that . Two years with bush before you got to the president ial detail you had to do a series of Field Office assignments investigations and Protection Assignments on advanced, and when you got to the president ial protection division, you had to have six or seven years of experience, which is what i got. Once you are there, we have training once a month and we have to do firearms once a month and then we have training where you go through routine and events that might happen and all of a sudden you would have an attacked on a person acting as the president to test your response skills. Its very intense training. I appreciate that, sir. Our Acting Director said we need a Paradigm Shift and we need to change of being reactive to one of readiness. What does that even mean . I think it means the Secret Service needs to shift how we do business. I will harken back to my testimony. A shift from all the work that was done to prepare you for President Reagan and president bush, is the lack of the work being done now . No, thats not what i mean, sir. I think theres a certain i dont know what words actually come to mind, but agents are exhausted now. The campaign really takes a lot out of them, and i think they dont have the Secret Service does not have enough personal resources to give the breaks they need. When we say about the Paradigm Shift and going from a reactive mode to a when would you not be proactive when you go into a situation like that . You are always looking for points of attack yeah, i am talking about the agency. If you were out there in The Field and you saw somebody in the line of site, or you saw problems with the line of sight, what would you do . I would say its not safe for the president to come . How would you mitigate it . You could have trucks, banners, and lots of ways to mitigate. The simplest way to mitigate it was to post it. If you had officers on the inside of the building, or agents, nobody could have got to the roof. My understanding there was a type of vehicle that was to be posted to block that line of sight. When you came out and you were in charge and you didnt see the vehicle there, you still let the president come out . I didnt do the advance i know, but we will break away from this hearing for historic breaking news, mayor adams has been indicted. He will be the first sitting new York Mayor ever to face federal charges. Nbc news correspondent, rehema ellis. And a former federal prosecutor is also here. Rehema, start us off. This was just unsealed and i know you are still processing it and trying to get the details, but walk us through right now and help us through The Search that just happened this morning. Reporter its historic, like you mentioned. Adams is the first mayor of new York City to be federally indicted. The defendant became the Brooklyn Borough President and after a decade adams sought and accepted benefits such as International Travel and at least one turkish Government Official seeking to gain influence over him. By 2018, adams by then made known his plans to run for mayor for new York City, not only accepted but sought contributions to the mayoral campaign as well as other things of value from foreign nationals. As his prominence grew, his international been factors sought to cash in, and particularly in 2021, it became clear adams would become the new York City mayor and he agreed for the favorable benefits, and he began to prepare for his next election including by planning to solicit more illegal contributions and granting request from those that supported his 2021 mayoral campaign with such donations. I am standing in the plaza, and we are expecting the u. S. District attorney, damian williams, is going to hold a news conference. He put out just a moment ago they will talk about these charges. Interesting in the Press Conference and press release, he did not name mayor adams specifically, but it was clear that mayor adams was the target of this investigation as things have been swirling around him. You mentioned showing video where early this morning federal officials went to the mansion and took out material from his home. His attorney sent out a statement at that point. We should share it with you. His lawyer said federal agents appeared this morning at Gracie Mansion in an effort to create a spectacle again and take mayor Adams Phone again. He has been arrested sorry, he has not been arrested and looks forward to his day in court. They sent a dozen agents to pick up a phone when we would have happily turned it in. The mayor insisted Hes Instant of any and all charges that might come against him. Its interesting, though, because his administration has been bombarded with scandal, if you will, and allegations of illegal activity inasmuch an investigation has been going on now from almost the time he became mayor in 2021. The charges stem from a broad Corruption Investigation. They even examined, and now that we have the indictment it says the Mayors Campaign conspired with the Turkish Government to receive illegal foreign donations. As you know, its against the law for foreigners to participate by giving money in an american political election. It also examined whether or not the mayor pressured the new York City Fire Department officials in order to sign off on a new Highrise Office Building for the turkish consulate, despite warnings about safety problems. Last year, it should be mentioned, one of the Mayors Campaign fundraiser officials, briana shooks, and her phone was taken, and the mayor was stopped on the street and federal agents entered the vehicle taking his home and electronic equipment. The search also went to the liaison of the turkish Community And Airline executives, and there was talk that the mayor got an upgrade on his seats for flights to turkey. He had gone to turkey several times always said to be official business. Last Night Mayor adams released a statement saying hes innocent of any and all charges levelled against him. Hes anxious to have his day in court. Thank you. Come back with us with new information as you have a chance to soak in what we are learning. There are five counts in the 50plus page indictment. Count one, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and federal program bribery, and campaign officials by foreign nationals, and count three, solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national, and count five, bribery. These are extensive charges. It looks like all connected to illegal Campaign Contributions for the mayor by the Turkish Government in exchange for things like Luxury Travel. Right, i would say, actually, ana, there are some here that deal with Campaign Contributions and other aspects of the Bribery Charge that seems like a play for pay scene, we will give you Luxury Travel in exchange for the Turkish Government business. On page 41 theres a chart detailing what prosecutors believe are the trips that Eric Adams and his domestic partner accepted and the alleged value of the trips. I want to point out another glaring obvious thing, but maybe not so obvious to the viewers, this is a 57page Indictment against a single person, Eric Adams. There are no other defendants here and yet there are lots of other people who are detailed and strewn throughout the indictment named not by their actual names but by descriptions. Theres a person described as the promoter, and businessman one, two and three. These are people if not known to the general public are certainly known to prosecutors, and more importantly, known to the people who represent them. These are people who are now in the crosshairs of this investigation, because what the first of the counts you detailed . Its a conspiracy count, a conspiracy to commit the substantive counts, wire fraud, Bribery And Solicitation for campaign funds. These are people under investigation and not yet in the clear and their lawyers are on Speed Dial right now discussing what they should do in the singlepage indictment, not dissimilar to the indictment of sean diddy combs. The Southern District attorneys office, what stands out to you as you are going through this . What stands out to me is one paragraph in particular here where theres discussion about what it was that mayor adams was going to do for these turkish officials. There was reporting about this before the indictment but its laid out more clearly in the indictment. He pressured Fire Department officials to open up this turkish consulate building, a highrise where erdogan wanted to have his grand ceremony three years ago when he was in new york for the general u. N. Assembly, and he wanted to have the Grand Opening of the turkish consulate and he said its a masterpiece and would be a symbol. Well, what we are learning from this indictment is in order to get it open, mayor adams, he was not the mayor at the time but before he was the mayor but he had won the primary and was going to be the mayor, exerted extreme pressure on these Fire Department officials including telling one Fire Official that he was going to lose his job if he failed to sign off despite the fact that there was significant safety concerns to this building, just three days before the Consulate Opening was going to happen, there was concerns about the elevators and deficiencies with the smoke detectors, and according to the indictment, its mayor Adams Exerting his pressure on these Fire Department officials including telling them they could lose their job to make sure they signed off on this, and that was a very clear benefit that he was providing for these turkish officials. Again, this is not just money exchanges, but its a building where people seem to bevery, very significant allegation here against the mayor. Tom winter is also with us right now. Hes our national Law Enforcement correspondent with nbc news. Tom, you have been tracking all sorts of investigations, probes, involving the mayors circle, right . Other leadership positions here, weve seen resignations. Weve seen searches and confiscating devices from people like the new York Police commissioner who recently resigned, but this, again, all dealing specifically with mayor adams and looking at the indictment, i mean, as quick as on page six, theyre talking about as early as 2018, adams began raising money to fund his mayoral campaign and he was aware at that time there were laws prohibiting foreign contributions, so we know this is something theyve been following for years, right . Absolutely. Theyve been on this for a while. This investigation didnt come out of nowhere. Weve been reporting on the Fire Investigation in the Fdnys Involvement for over a year so this is something that was really well known. To give people an understanding of what were talking about here, the Fire Commission at the time was dan. Dan responded on 9 11 to the World Trade centers. He is credited, because he survived that day, with rebuilding the new York City Fire Department after 9 11. And so, you have the mayor of the city of new york, and dan was a holdover from the De Blasio administration, the prior administration, so you have this man whos effectively saying, look, id like to stay on, et cetera, and youve got adams clearly leaning on him and other members of the department to try to get this temporary certificate of occupancy. Thats for folks that are reading this, what the tco is referring to. So, theres real questions here because the chief of the department of the fdny and the head of Fire Prevention are some of the most important jobs in making sure that people stay safe if there is a fire in a building. Theres people that respond when a fire occurs, but there are people that try to make sure that theres not an incident in the first place, or if there is, that people can actually get out of one of these highrises with enough time and safely. And so, the fact that you have the mayor leaning personally on this building and on the fdny in order to get this building approved so that it can have occupancy, is something that i think alarms a lot of folks within the Fire Community and the city of new york. So, theres a lot of questions that we have. We do know that the Fdny Commissioner at the time, whos not named in this indictment, theres no allegations of wrongdoing, no charges or any investigation that we have been told of that involves him at all. In fact, he apparently has met with the fbi on several occasions. Our colleague, melissa russo, has reported. Thats where that stands, as far as the kind of the key component of this, which seems to hinge on the fact that turkey was able to get a preferential ruling from the Fire Department. Initially, this was explained away by some in the Adams Administration and some in new York City government saying, look back at that time period, were talking about 2021. So, following the pandemic, just so people have an understanding of this, in the pandemic, most of these inspections were Shut Down, and then most of the construction in the city was Shut Down. In 2021, it was so difficult. People had to wait four months, five months, even longer to get the appropriate inspections done to open these buildings, so the fact that there was this much pressure put on the Fire Department was significant. Were looking at a live shot from a Podium Setup outside mayor adams residence, gracy mansion, here in new York City, where we are told the mayor is expected to offer some remarks here any minute now, so well, of course, bring those live, and well keep an eye on that setup. I want to bring in andrew weissmann, former senior member of the mueller probe. Hes now an nbc legal analyst, and andrew, i understand this reminds you of another Highprofile Case you were a part of. It does. I was i have to say i was struck by two things. So, one, to pick up on where tom left off, there are allegations of bribery, and that is the sort of, he got money to do something. And that is something that, you know thats a tricky charge, because you have to be able to show that the money is what led to the action. In other words, that they werent going to independently do that and they didnt have other reasons. As tom said, with respect to bribery, the sort of normal defense would be, well, things were Shut Down and this was just speeding something up when lots of things needed to go forward, and he would have done that anyway. The problem for mayor adams is that that is not the only charge. That is one of the charges, but there is a very simple, relatively clean charge here of simply knowingly and illegally taking foreign money into his campaign. In other words, even if he didnt do anything as a result of that, there are charges that he did do something as a result of that, but in order to prove those sort of illegal Campaign Contributions of taking foreign money into a campaign, Thats Something that we certainly looked at and actually have charged in my prior life as a prosecutor. Those are relatively clean charges, and there seems to, if the indictment can be proved out beyond a reasonable doubt, it seems to be quite strong for that very simple charge that you have somebody who used to be a, you know, senior police official, who is now the mayor of the city of new york, being alleged to have knowingly taken funds from a foreign country in order to, in this case, take action on his behalf. Very, very reminiscent, by The Way, of a case that this office, the Southern District of new york, recently brought successfully against Senator Menendez of taking foreign money in exchange for taking action. So, thats sort of my quick take is that they have sort of clean, simple charges and a slightly more complex Bribery Charge. And again, there are multiple charges as lisa pointed out with varying allegations, but one thing that seems to be at least repeated as im looking through this indictment, lisa, is they have evidence, they say, of efforts to conceal his actions. For example, they say he tried to conceal the valuable flight, hotel, and other Travel Benefits that he accepted from foreign nationals. They say that there were efforts to conceal Straw Donations that he orchestrated. How significant is that . Its extraordinarily significant, because it can be revelatory of intent. If you didnt do anything wrong, you wouldnt make any efforts to conceal it is the thinking here. But ana, theres also efforts to conceal things after adams understands that theres an investigation, and Thats Part of these allegations too. Those are the kinds of allegations that might, in some circumstances, lead to obstruction of justice charges or witness tampering charges. For example, theres a whole litany of allegations about how Eric Adams contacted people once he understood that they themselves were under investigation, had been served with search warrants, had their phones seized, and they talk about these people in some detail. That may be an attempt to gain leverage over other people who could be named as coconspirators here or simply to encourage them to do some more talking based on what they know, but this is also reflective of the fact that some of what the Southern District is talking about here is not necessarily what comes from electronic evidence. It seems like they have actual witnesses who have recounted to them what transpired between them and Eric Adams or them and other coconspirators with respect to concealing what had taken place to hide it from the feds view. Tom . So, the secret about this investigation is that it became public through Eric Adams. Eric adams was in washington, d. C. , to meet with the biden administration about the migrant crisis in new York City, and he abruptly canceled the meeting, which led to reporters, including The One whos speaking right now, calling all over the city. We were concerned. Was there a major Terrorist Attack that was thwarted . Was there some sort of major event that occurred to get the mayor of the city of new york to return from a meeting with the president of the united states back to new York City . Its referenced here that his fundraiser, who weve identified from previous reporting is the subject of The Search, breanna suggs, his chief fundraiser, the only reason why people knew she was being searched is because people made so many calls that day and it talks about the fact that before she even let the fbi into her residence, she was making Phone Calls. Before answering, im quoting now, before answering the repeated knocks at her door, the Adams Fundraiser called adams five times even though the agents had not given the Adams Fundraiser any information about the purpose of their visit. And then at a later date, the fbi, as weve reported, went to Eric Adams, took his Cell Phones, but he was not carrying his personal Cell Phone at the time. They issued a subpoena for it. Adams turns over his personal Cell Phone. They says that he changed his password in the intervening time and then told the fbi that he couldnt remember the password to be able to unlock the phone. So, this is the type of specific conduct that lisa was alluding to before and the type of thing that i think is going to raise some eyebrows, why a former Police Captain of the new York City Police Department was changing passwords and making Phone Calls and turning around trips and why he was so concerned about this. They also say that that Campaign Fundraiser refused to speak with actually, did speak to fbi agents, agreed to talk with them about many subjects but refused to say who paid for her 2021 travel to turkey. Everybody, stay with us. I want to remind our viewers, mayor adams has denied all the ga