Mayorkas rips ‘politicized’ atmosphere over FEMA disaster response amid GOP criticism: ‘It sows distrust’
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who has been a political lightning rod for controversy during the Biden-Harris administration, on Monday pushed back against what he claimed was “intentionally false information” about the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) work. “I have not seen it ever before at this level,” he said on MSNBC, speaking to host Jen Psaki. “You and I both remember a time when an extreme weather event, a natural disaster, actually brought people together. Now, unfortunately, tragically, quite frankly, it is politicized.” Both DHS and FEMA have been under fire over their response to Hurricane Helene, with claims that it has diverted resources to illegal immigrants, has been delayed in its response, and is out of money. SPEAKER JOHNSON RIPS ‘LACK OF LEADERSHIP’ IN BIDEN ADMIN’S HELENE RESPONSE: ‘ALARMED AND DISAPPOINTED’ Much of the controversy was triggered last week when Mayorkas said FEMA “does not have the funds to make it through the season.” He went on to say that the agency has the money for “immediate needs” but is concerned about not having a stable supply of funding. Congress recently freed up $20 billion for the disaster fund, but officials have called on Congress to pass a supplemental spending bill. Critics quickly pointed to FEMA’s role in distributing more than $650 million in funds to help illegal immigrants as part of its Shelter and Services Program (SSP). Former President Trump recently accused the Biden administration of stealing FEMA money “for their illegal immigrants.” However, the Biden administration has noted that that funding, which comes from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and is congressionally appropriated for grants to local governments and nonprofits, is entirely separate from the significantly larger Disaster Relief Fund. “No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts,” FEMA said in a release this week. HURRICANE HELENE: NORTH CAROLINA RESIDENTS FIGHT FOR THEIR SURVIVAL AS BASIC GOODS BECOME SCARCE It has still faced questions from some Republican senators about whether its “entanglement” in the border crisis has affected its operational readiness. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., meanwhile, told Fox News Digital last week that the administration has “failed in that response.” “They are scrambling to cover their egregious errors and mistakes. And there’s an effort to blame others or blame circumstances when this is just purely a lack of leadership and response,” the speaker said. FEMA also faced backlash last week after its unearthed emergency management “equity” blueprint went viral. The number one goal listed in the Biden-Harris agency’s priorities is to “instill equity as a foundation of emergency management.” According to FEMA’s plan, “Diversity, equity, and inclusion cannot be optional.” This week, FEMA has been pushing back against claims that FEMA grants have to be repaid, that it is restricting airspace for rescue and recovery operations, and that it is distributing aid based on demographic characteristics. It has published a fact sheet to check some of those claims. Mayorkas, who was impeached by the Republican-led House this year, on Monday again stressed that there is help available for those who need it, and warned of the effects of misinformation. TRUMP TARGETS BIDEN, HARRIS OVER FEDERAL RESPONSE TO HURRICANE: ‘INCOMPETENTLY MANAGED’ “What happens is the people who are victimized by the natural disaster are the ones who will suffer,” he said. “It sows distrust in their government, and therefore they don’t seek the help that they truly need.” “We have funds to put in their pockets to be able to help them address immediate needs. These individuals are not seeking that relief because of the disinformation, the intentionally false information they are receiving.” He also said the misinformation hurts the workforce. “These are individuals who are putting their lives on the line to search and rescue for victims of Hurricane Helene, a hurricane of historic magnitude,” he said. “It is very sad.” Critics have pointed to his handling of the historic crisis at the southern border, including his fueling of a since-debunked controversy about Border Patrol agents on horseback allegedly mistreating Haitian migrants, when judging his record. Fox News’ Liz Elkind contributed to this report.
Assembly Election 2024 Results: INDIA bloc’s first win in J-K, BJP retains Haryana
The ruling BJP is all set to form the government for the third consecutive time.
Hispanic voters rail against ‘dishonest’ Biden-Harris border record as poll shows Trump gaining in key states
LAS VEGAS – Hispanic voters at a pro-Trump event in Nevada ripped the Biden-Harris administration on immigration following news that tens of thousands of illegal immigrants charged with rape and murder are in the United States. “The current administration are very, very responsible,” Demesio Guerrero, a Trump supporter at a GOP Hispanic outreach event in Clark County, Nevada, told Fox News Digital in response to a question about recently released ICE data showing tens of thousands of illegal immigrants with sexual assault and murder convictions are living in the United States. “They are like traitors of the United States. Because you know what, all the crimes, all the innocent Americans that are dying every day in many, many, many cities in the United States are the result of those criminals being loose.” Blanca Fox, a Trump campaign volunteer originally from Guatemala, told Fox News Digital that the Biden administration should have warned the American public about the ICE numbers. HARRIS SURROGATES TRY TO EXPLAIN AWAY ‘FLIP-FLOPPING’ IMMIGRATION POLICY “They’re being like so dishonest right now with the whole country,” Fox said. “Everybody is hurt and they don’t see the reality that Kamala Harris has been for four years in the [vice] presidency and all we have is like problems. We have no solutions with them. We’re not against people to come to the United States, but the legal way, if you come to look for a better future, do it the right way and don’t come and commit crimes and be a problem.” Lydia Dominguez, a Trump supporter from Clark County who spoke on a panel at the Latinos for Trump event, told Fox News Digital that “there is a crisis occurring at the border.” HARRIS SUPPORTERS SAY SHE’LL FIX IMMIGRATION, BLAME TRUMP FOR BORDER CRISIS “Between the drugs, the human trafficking, and now the millions of illegal immigrants that we have crossing over that we have not vetted or that have actually been charged for murder in other countries,” Dominguez said. “So it’s alarming what’s happening at the border.” “They say that that’s only a very small group,” RNC Hispanic communications director Jaime Florez told Fox News Digital about criminal illegal aliens in the United States. “You know, try to explain those statistics to the parents of the girl that was killed in the University of Georgia. When 10 million people come into this country without being vetted in any way, it is impossible to think that no criminal is going to come among them.” A Las Vegas resident called the current status of the southern border “terrible,” pointing out that “anyone can declare” asylum and “they’re just allowed to come in.” Former Texas congressional candidate Rolando Rodriguez told Fox News Digital that he grew up around the border and explained that today it is a “disaster like never before in the history of this nation and probably in the history of the world.” This week, a pair of Suffolk University/USA Today surveys showed that Harris leads Trump among Hispanic voters in the key swing states of Nevada and Arizona, but also showed Trump has made gains with younger male Hispanic voters compared to four years ago. LAKE RIPS BIDEN-HARRIS ‘DOUBLE WHAMMY’ POLICIES AFFECTING ARIZONANS : ‘DRIVEN US OVER THE CLIFF’ “So far, Harris is falling short of the 24-26 point advantage that Joe Biden carried with Hispanic voters in Arizona and Nevada in 2020, according to the exit polls from those states,” Suffolk University Political Research Center director David Paleologos highlighted. “This Democratic shortfall is largely due to young Hispanic men.” The Hispanic voters who spoke to Fox News Digital expressed a similar sentiment to what was highlighted in the polling and said they expect Trump will increase his numbers with Hispanic voters in 2024, in part because of the immigration crisis. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “President Reagan used to say Hispanics are Republicans. They just don’t know it yet,” Florez told Fox News Digital. “We’re finding out. I think that many Hispanics that are Democrats found out that the Democratic Party has taken them for granted for way too long. They have made us promises that they never fulfilled, including immigration reform that President Obama promised never happened.” “We had a great time, it was a very prosperous time for us when President Trump was in the White House,” Florez added, noting that Hispanic household income was up during the Trump presidency. “I’m sure that Trump is going to win Nevada. Definitely.”
PA gov takes victory lap after Supreme Court rejects GOP bid to overturn election law ‘usurpations’
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected hearing a Republican-backed challenge to an executive order signed by President Biden that works to broaden voting access and registration, just roughly one month before Election Day. The Supreme Court reconvened Monday for its 2024-2025 term and rejected a bevvy of cases, including one backed by dozens of Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania who claimed President Biden’s 2021 executive order on voter access was unconstitutional and attempted to interfere with the election. The lawsuit also targeted an edict from Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro for enacting automatic voter registration across the state. The justices did not comment when rejecting the appeal. Shapiro’s office took a victory lap following the Supreme Court’s rejection of hearing the case, calling GOP efforts a “bad faith attempt” to disenfranchise voters. “This petition was yet another bad faith attempt to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters – and the U.S. Supreme Court made the right decision to deny the Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus petition,” Shapiro spokesman Manuel Bonder told Fox News Digital on Tuesday. GOP STATE LAWMAKERS APPEAL TO SCOTUS TO CHALLENGE BIDEN’S ‘USURPATIONS’ OF THEIR POWER TO RUN ELECTIONS “Governor Shapiro has consistently fought to protect our democracy – including defeating Donald Trump and his allies in court dozens of times to defend Pennsylvanians’ votes and protect access to the ballot box. Yesterday, election deniers went 0-2 at the U.S. Supreme Court,” Bonder said. Biden signed the executive order on Promoting Access to Voting in March 2021, which directs federal agencies to expand access to voter registration, works to overhaul the government’s Vote.gov website, and notes that the federal government has a “duty to ensure that registering to vote and the act of voting be made simple and easy for all those eligible to do so.” DOJ ‘STONEWALLING’ REQUESTS FOR DETAILS ON IMPLEMENTATION OF BIDEN’S ‘FEDERAL ELECTION SCHEME’ Executive Order 14019 states that “executive departments and agencies should partner with State, local, Tribal, and territorial election officials to protect and promote the exercise of the right to vote, eliminate discrimination and other barriers to voting, and expand access to voter registration and accurate election information.” The executive order set off a firestorm of criticism among Republicans, most notably with 27 Republican Pennsylvania lawmakers filing a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality, Fox News Digital previously reported. The lawmakers argued that the executive order essentially serves as an executive get-out-the-vote effort targeting demographics that would benefit the Democratic Party. They argued the move was unconstitutional as Congress never enacted a law that grants such an action from the White House. A federal judge rejected the lawsuit in March, citing it lacked legal standing, setting up a legal showdown in the U.S. Supreme Court. “We think it’s really important for President Biden to be held accountable,” Erick Kaardal, an attorney for the lawmakers, told Fox News Digital in April. “For him to violate such a big law when all the little people have to follow the laws, even little laws … it’s clear President Biden has issued an executive order without congressional enactments to get himself re-elected. It’s ridiculous,” Kaardal added. BIDEN’S GET-OUT-THE-VOTE EXECUTIVE ORDER CHALLENGED, HEADING TO SUPREME COURT: ‘TARGET WELFARE POPULATIONS’ In their petition filed to the Supreme Court in April, the Republican lawmakers asked the court to weigh in on the case. They argued that, for the 2024 election, they cannot “do their part” in suing to stop “federal and state executive usurpations of Pennsylvania state law, pursuant to the Elections Clause and Electors Clause, unless the Court does its part and declares individual state legislator standing in this case.” The lawmakers had called on the Supreme Court to bypass the federal appeals court, and determine if they have standing to bring the case ahead of the 2024 election. Following the court’s rejection of the case, Shapiro’s office told Fox Digital that the governor is zeroed-in on “protecting our democracy and ensuring our elections are free, fair, safe, and secure.” The Supreme Court this term will hear a handful of other high-profile cases, including laws banning “ghost guns,” the legality of Tennessee’s ban on transgender surgery for children, as well as the legality of federal bans on flavored e-cigarette vapes.
Party opposed to India’s stripping of Kashmir’s autonomy wins election
National Conference-led alliance wins 48 seats in 90-seat assembly in first state legislative elections in a decade. India-administered Kashmir’s biggest political party opposed to India’s stripping of the region’s semi-autonomy has won the most seats in the first legislative elections since the move by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government five years ago. The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, or NC, won 42 seats in the 90-seat Legislative Assembly, the Election Commission announced on Tuesday. The BJP secured 29 seats while the country’s main opposition Indian National Congress party, which fought the election in alliance with the NC, succeeded in six constituencies. Polling took place over three phases starting on September 18. “People have supported us more than our expectations. Now our efforts will be to prove that we are worth these votes,” Omar Abdullah, the NC leader and the region’s former chief minister, told reporters in the main city of Srinagar. His father and president of the party, Farooq Abdullah, said its mandate was to run the region without “police raj” rule and try freeing people from jails. “Media will be free,” he said. Supporters of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference party celebrate outside the vote-counting centre in Srinagar [Sharafat Ali/Reuters] Hundreds of NC workers gathered outside counting centres and at the homes of the winning candidates to celebrate the party’s victory. Kashmir has been at the centre of a dispute with neighbouring Pakistan since 1947. India and Pakistan both claim the region in full but rule it in part after having fought two of their three wars over the region. Restoration of ‘political rights’? Some saw the vote as a de facto referendum on the federal government’s decision to repeal the territory’s special status. The move downgraded and divided the former state into two centrally governed union territories, Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir. “The people have given their judgement against what New Delhi did,” social activist Iqbal Ahmad Bhat told the AFP news agency. Resident Jahangir Ahmad told AFP that he hoped “political rights will be restored” in the state after the NC-led alliance’s victory. Nevertheless, critics said the assembly has only nominal powers over education and culture. New Delhi also has the power to override legislation and will continue to appoint the governor. The BJP won all its seats in the southern Hindu-majority region of Jammu. Modi said he was “proud” of the BJP’s performance, saying that enthusiasm for the election was reflective of “the people’s belief in democracy”. BJP victory expected in Haryana In legislative elections held on Tuesday in the state of Haryana, the BJP appeared to be heading for victory, according to preliminary results shared by the Election Commission. The BJP was leading in 50 constituencies and the Congress in 35 out of 90. So far in the vote counting, the BJP has won 18 seats and is leading in 32 constituencies while the Congress has won 15 seats and is leading in 20, according to the commission. A victory would give the BJP a record third win in the state, which it is set to govern for the next five years. The results in Haryana state are a surprise because most exit polls had predicted an easy victory for the Congress party. Adblock test (Why?)
MI5 chief says Russia and Iran behind rise in assassination plots in UK
Ken McCallum said the number of state-threat investigations undertaken by MI5 has risen by 48 percent in the past year. The United Kingdom is facing a “staggering rise” in assassination attempts on its soil by Russia and Iran as the hostile states recruit criminals to “do their dirty work” for them, the head of the UK’s domestic intelligence agency has said. In a rare public speech on Tuesday setting out the major threats to the UK from both hostile states and terror groups, MI5 director Ken McCallum said the number of state-threat investigations undertaken by MI5 has risen by 48 percent in the past year, with Iran, Russia and, China the main perpetrators. “The first 20 years of my career here were crammed full of terrorist threats,” McCallum said. “We now face those alongside state-backed assassination and sabotage plots, against the backdrop of a major European land war.” “It will be clear to you that MI5 has one hell of a job on its hands,” McCallum told journalists at the UK’s counterterrorism command centre in London. Charting out threats from Iran, he said that his agents and police have tackled 20 Tehran-backed plots since 2022 and warned that Iran could expand its targets in the UK if Israel attacks in response to Iran’s missile barrage. The spy chief also noted that the widening conflicts in the Middle East raise the risk “of an increase in – or broadening of – Iranian state aggression in the UK.” With respect to threats from Russia, McCallum said that despite the expulsion of more than 750 Russian diplomats from Europe since Moscow invaded Ukraine and the ejection of the last Russian military intelligence officer from the UK earlier this year, it was “eye-catching” how Russian state actors were turning to proxies to do their work. “The GRU in particular is on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets: we’ve seen arson, sabotage and more. Dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness,” he said, declining to give further details. Both Russia and Iran often turn to criminals, “from international drug traffickers to low-level crooks,” to carry out attacks, he added. The UK’s official “terror” threat level stands at “substantial,” the middle of a five-point scale, meaning an attack is likely, and since 2017 MI5 and the police have disrupted 43 late-stage “terror” plots. McCallum also said there was worrying signs that the ISIL group is back, despite the collapse of its self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria. He said the internet was the “biggest factor” driving the rise, describing how easily youngsters can access “inspirational and instructional material” from their bedrooms. He said the intelligence service was seeing “far too many cases where very young people are being drawn into poisonous online extremism” and singled out “canny” internet memes. “Extreme right-wing terrorism in particular skews heavily towards young people, driven by propaganda that shows a canny understanding of online culture,” he added. Adblock test (Why?)
Kosovo to start trial for Banjska attack by Serb group: Why it matters
A year after an attack by a Serbian armed group in northern Kosovo’s Banjska killed a police officer, the trial is expected to begin on Wednesday at the Pristina Basic Court. In all, 45 suspects have been indicted for the attack in September 2023, which Kosovo Serb businessman and politician Milan Radoicic later said he led and organised after he was identified in drone footage by Kosovo security officials. The attack aggravated tensions between Kosovo and Serbia, and experts fear the trial could be complicated by the difficult nature of the relationship between the two. Here’s what happened in Banjska and why the trial matters: What happened in Banjska? A group of Serbs, armed and masked, killed Kosovo police Sergeant Afrim Bunjaku and wounded two others when they ambushed a Kosovar police patrol in the village of Banjska near the Serbia-Kosovo border on September 24, 2023. The group then fled to a nearby Orthodox monastery, and its members barricaded themselves in. A gun battle ensued with Kosovo police that lasted for hours. Three of the Serb assailants were killed, and dozens of the attackers fled to Serbia. The police confiscated more than 1,000 of their weapons and pieces of equipment valued at more than 5 million euros (more than $5.5m). Kosovar officials said the confiscated weapons were produced in Serbia and cannot be found on the open market. Based in part on the alleged origins of the weapons, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and other Kosovar authorities have accused Serbia of masterminding the attack. Who are the suspects and what are the charges against them? The 45 defendants have been charged with “terrorism” and crimes against Kosovo’s constitutional order and security. The central accusation against them is that they were aiming to take over the northern part of Kosovo with the intent of annexing it to Serbia, according to the indictment filed in September. Prosecutor Naim Abazi called the gunmen a “well-structured group” and said the investigations into the case were “one of the most complex that the prosecution has ever worked on”, according to the Balkan Insight news website. Only three of the suspects remain in custody in Kosovo. The rest, including Radoicic, remain in Serbia. On October 3, 2023, Serbian authorities arrested Radoicic for questioning. He denied guilt in his testimony to the Serbian prosecutor’s office. But previously in a letter read by his lawyer, he had admitted to personally organising the attack and denied the involvement of the Serbian government. Why was the attack so significant? The Banjska attack is one of the most violent incidents to occur in Kosovo since it declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a decade after a war between Serbian forces and ethnic Albanian secessionists that saw an Albanian Kosovar uprising against Belgrade’s rule. The majority Serb population that lives in northern Kosovo does not recognise the country as a sovereign nation and views Belgrade as its capital. Over the years, there have been numerous clashes between Serbs on the one hand and Kosovo police and NATO-led peacekeepers on the other. Since 2012, Belgrade and Pristina have been holding normalisation talks mediated by the European Union with the goal of joining the bloc, but the talks have broken down mostly over a deal to create an association of Serb-majority municipalities in northern Kosovo as some fear it would only create another mini-state. Kosovo political leaders have accused Serbia of being behind the Banjska attack politically, materially and logistically. Kurti said Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic planned and ordered the attack “to destabilise” Kosovo with the goal of starting a war for more territorial gain. Speaking to the media at a commemoration ceremony last month at the scene of the attack, Kurti maintained that Radoicic – who was at the time vice president of the Serb List, a Belgrade-supported political party in Kosovo – “was trained in Serbia and financed by Belgrade”. Experts said the attack suggests a possible hardening in Serbia’s approach towards resolving differences with Kosovo. The attack showed that “Serbia and its proxy groups have abandoned peaceful dialogue and have chosen hybrid warfare to achieve their political goals”, Gezim Visoka, associate professor of peace and conflict studies at Dublin City University, told Al Jazeera. Those goals, Visoka said, are to “force Kosovo and the international community to make further concessions in the EU-led talks for normalisation of relations, which have reached a stalemate due to fundamental disagreements”. What has Serbia said? Serbia has denied any role in the attack, and Radoicic has insisted that the Serbian government was not involved. Vucic has instead accused Kurti of wanting to expel Serbs from Kosovo. After the attack, he said Kurti’s refusal to form an Association of Serb Municipalities – as part of a 2013 agreement between Belgrade and Pristina that would allocate Kosovo Serbs more autonomy – is what fuelled tensions leading to the violence in Banjska. Journalist Branislav Krstic, a Serb from northern Kosovo, described the Banjska attack to Al Jazeera as “a gift for Pristina” — in that it helps strengthen Kosovo’s argument for keeping control over the Serb-majority north. The case, he said, adds to the “loss of sovereignty of Serbs in northern Kosovo”. What’s expected during the trial? Prosecution lawyers told the Kosovo daily Koha last month that they feared the trial would be prolonged, in part because most of the suspects are in Serbia. Lawyer Kadri Osaj told Koha that their extradition from Serbia was unlikely due to a lack of legal cooperation between the two governments. “The authorities of Serbia were directly and indirectly involved in the case, so I do not expect that these persons will be extradited to Kosovo,” Koha quoted Osaj as saying. Visoka also said the fact that most suspects won’t physically be brought to trial complicates the process. Without Serbia’s cooperation and pressure from the West, it’s unlikely that Kosovo will be able to bring to justice the perpetrators of the attack, Visoka said. “The trial is likely to reveal more about the
Colin Allred raises $30 million in third quarter of 2024, outpacing Ted Cruz
The staggering fundraising numbers mean that Cruz and Allred have collectively raised at least $132 million, surpassing the final combined haul from 2018.
Texas’ abortion laws are straining the OB/GYN workforce, new study shows
More doctors are considering leaving or retiring early, while fewer medical students are applying to obstetrics and gynecology residencies in Texas.
NYC First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright resigns as Eric Adams’ administration suffers more departures: report
New York City First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright reportedly resigned from her position Tuesday after the FBI raided her home in early September, becoming the latest senior official to depart Mayor Eric Adams’ administration as he faces federal corruption charges. Wright’s reported resignation comes just days after her husband, New York City Public Schools Chancellor David Banks, announced that he would resign earlier than expected in October. The New York Times, citing sources, says Wright is expected to be replaced by Maria Torres-Springer, who is the current deputy mayor for housing, economic development and workforce. When asked about the matter on Tuesday morning, the mayor’s office told Fox News Digital that “No announcement is final until and if it is made.” On Monday, Winnie Greco, the mayor’s director of Asian affairs, also resigned from her role, according to the New York Post. Her attorney Steven Brill – who did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment from Fox News Digital – told The City that Greco “officially resigned… on her own volition.” ERIC ADAMS CHANNELS TRUMP AS HE RAMPS UP REVENGE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, EXPERT SAYS The same day, Rena Abbasova, a staffer for Adams who worked in the office of international affairs, was fired from her job, with sources telling Fox News that she was let go because she is the “key cooperating witness” in the federal investigation of Adams. Senior New York City Hall official Mohamed Bahi also stepped down on Monday. This morning, federal prosecutors announced they unsealed a complaint charging him “with witness tampering and destruction of evidence in connection with a federal investigation of unlawful contributions to a particular 2021 mayoral campaign.” “If there were no vulnerabilities here, nobody would have to resign,” former NYPD inspector and Fox News contributor Paul Mauro told Fox News Digital. “Obviously, a lot of them are trying to make the point ‘oh I was going to leave anyway’ — but these are all the people from [Adams’] tightest inner circle and this is the team he put together to run the city and for them to be leaving prematurely when he would normally be gearing up for re-election, I don’t see how you can argue that this is business as usual. It’s very obvious something heavy is going on.” MOST NEW YORK CITY RESIDENTS WANT INDICTED MAYOR ERIC ADAMS TO RESIGN: POLL Adams is facing a five-count indictment on fraud, bribery and corruption charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty. The mayor, 64, is accused of soliciting illegal campaign donations from foreign entities and falsifying paper trails to cover it up. As part of the plot, he allegedly defrauded taxpayers for $10 million over the past decade and frequently took free or steeply discounted vacations bankrolled by his foreign benefactors. Adams has said in a video statement that any charges filed against him would be “entirely false, based on lies,” and he insinuated that his criticism of the Biden administration’s disastrous border policies made him a target for retaliation. ERIC ADAMS IS LIKELY TO FACE MORE CHARGES The mayor was quoted by The New York Times as saying in a statement that will be circulated Tuesday that “We are grateful for First Deputy Mayor Wright’s years of service to the city and all she has done to deliver for children, families, and working-class New Yorkers.” “She is an exceptional leader who assembled a strong team and constantly demonstrated a bold vision for this city,” he reportedly added. The mayor’s office says on its website that Wright served in the administration since January 2022, first as deputy mayor of strategic initiatives and then as first deputy mayor starting in January 2023. “During her time in the administration, she helped launch the first phase of the MyCity portal, a one-stop-shop where New Yorkers can easily apply for and track city services and benefits. She has helped the city deliver on key planks of the Blueprint for Child Care & Early Childhood Education in New York City — most notably, clearing a backlogged waitlist for vouchers and allowing families of 36,000 children to apply for low-cost, high-quality child care,” her bio reads. Wright, a graduate of Columbia University and Columbia Law School, also “previously served as the first female president and CEO of United Way of New York City,” it added. Fox News’ Alexis McAdams, Michael Ruiz and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.