Mayor Eric Adams praised former aide Mohamed Bahi on Tuesday following his arrest on federal charges of witness tampering and destruction of evidence concerning the federal investigation that preceded Adams’ own corruption indictment late last month.
The mayor, during his weekly wide-ranging press conference, lauded Bahi’s work at City Hall as a senior liaison to the Muslim community while dodging reporters’ questions about his indictment. Bahi was charged a day after resigning from his position in the administration.
“Mohamed Bahi was one of the top Muslim liaisons even before joining the mayor’s office,” Adams said. “I always found him to be thoughtful. I always found him to be willing to go into all of the communities. But what he has done to really bring down the news with some of the conflicts that we are seeing today, I think the record will speak loudly for what he has committed. But he has attorneys, let the attorneys handle his case.”
In the indictment, Manhattan federal prosecutors and the city Department of Investigation accused Bahi of instructing key witnesses in investigating the mayor’s 2021 campaign to lie to federal prosecutors about straw donations made to the campaign. Additionally, they allege that Bahi deleted the encrypted messaging app Signal off of his cell phone ahead of a federal search of his home in July.
Bahi is the first associate of the mayor to be separately charged in connection with the federal investigation into his 2021 campaign, which resulted in Adams being hit with a five-count indictment on Sept. 26. It came after federal prosecutors, in the mayor’s first court conference last week, revealed that more charges against the mayor himself are possible and new indictments against his co-conspirators are “likely.”
Adams was charged with conspiracy, bribery, soliciting foreign campaign donations, and wire fraud — to which he pleaded not guilty.
The mayor stands accused of presiding over a nearly decade-long scheme in which he accepted over $100,000 in unreported gifts and tens of thousands of dollars in illegal foreign donations from Turkish nationals. Adams allegedly concealed the foreign donations by receiving them through straw donors — where donors illegally reimburse others to make contributions in their own name
In return, prosecutors allege, Adams expedited FDNY approvals for a Midtown Manhattan Turkish consulate building that had failed required fire inspections on behalf of the Turkish government.
Bahi’s indictment alleges that he told a businessman alleged to have orchestrated straw donations to the mayor’s campaign that Adams — whom prosecutors refer to in the document as “Official-1” — said he believed the businessman would “not cooperate” with law enforcement.
But Adams, when asked about that specific interaction during his news conference, said, “I would never instruct anyone to do anything illegal or improper.”
“The only instruction I give people all the time [is] follow the law,” Adams added. “‘Follow the law’ is my number one instruction that I give people.”
The mayor also denied that he instructed Bahi to tell the five straw donors mentioned in the indictment — including the founder and four employees of a locally-based construction company —to lie to the FBI.
