Turkey began investing in Eric Adams a decade ago, when he was just the Brooklyn borough president. The Turks saw Adams as an ambitious politician "on the rise," federal prosecutors say, and provided him with luxury air travel and hotels and illegal donations for a mayoral campaign. When Adams became New York City's mayor, a Turkish businessman who helped woo him told people that "Adams would soon be president of the United States." Alas, that plan went awry and ended in criminal charges, but sometimes, foreign governments make more successful bets.
In 1987, the Soviet Union began cultivating real estate mogul Donald Trump, inviting him to Moscow to discuss business opportunities. Two months later, Trump spent $100,000 on full-page ads in The New York Times urging the U.S. to "stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves." It was Trump's first public attack on U.S. allies and NATO, but not the last. He made many subsequent trips to Moscow.
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