Following FBI raid, Adams defends his 'very bright, energetic' fundraiser

NEW YORK — The FBI didn’t just raid anyone’s house Thursday.

Federal agents were in the Brooklyn home of Brianna Suggs, the chief fundraiser for New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign.

That would be a big job for anyone, and she was doing it at just 23 years old.

Suggs hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing — nobody has in the case. There’s a lot unknown about the U.S. Attorney’s investigation, and the office for the Southern District of New York isn’t talking.

The investigation concerns a possible straw donor scheme to funnel Turkish nationals’ money to Adams’ campaign through a Brooklyn construction firm, The New York Times reported. Suggs’ home was just one of “numerous search warrants” that were executed, CNN reported, including one connected to KSK Construction Group, which declined to comment.

Suggs “ran our entire fundraising apparatus in this previous campaign,” and is doing the same for his 2025 reelection effort, Adams said in an interview Friday with PIX 11 — and she’s keeping her job. “I have full confidence in her. She has done an amazing job, and if she will stay with the campaign team, I would love to have her continue to stay with the campaign team.”

Suggs is “a very bright, energetic, smart young lady who worked hard,” Adams continued. “I feel confidence in her integrity and how hard she works. And often young African American ladies don’t get the opportunities that others receive in this business of politics.”

But that big opportunity inside the campaign has now put her in a difficult spot.

A raid — as opposed to a subpoena — suggests the U.S. Attorney’s office feels “there’s a reasonable probability” that Suggs was involved in a crime, “or at the very least, has knowledge of other people’s wrongdoing,” said Paul Tuchmann, former acting chief of the Public Integrity section for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.

Raids are sometimes conducted because prosecutors think it will make the target more likely to talk and cooperate, Tuchmann said.

“The fact that they're executing a search warrant shows to me that the investigation is ongoing, and they don't necessarily know yet where it's going to end,” he said. “Whether it's with donors or people on the donor side, or also with people on the campaign side.”

As somebody who organized the logistics of the hundreds of fundraising events held by the campaign, and managed the more than 15,000 contributions brought in, Suggs would likely have files that investigators want to see.

Suggs’ spokesperson, Jordan Barowitz, declined to comment on the investigation.

The Adams campaign has “started an extensive review of all documents and actions by campaign workers connected to the contributors in question,” campaign counsel Vito Pitta said in a statement.

And in an emailed statement, Adams said he was “outraged and angry if anyone attempted to use the campaign to manipulate our democracy and defraud our campaign. I want to be clear, I have no knowledge, direct or otherwise, of any improper fundraising activity — and certainly not of any foreign money. We will of course work with officials to respond to inquiries, as appropriate — as we always have.”

Adams’ decision to hire Suggs is raising questions.

Donors to Adams dealt with her directly, one prominent contributor who was granted anonymity to discuss the campaign told POLITICO. “She was very, very young. … What turned some heads is that she was running the whole operation of that campaign, the finance part of it, and she was so young and inexperienced.”

Suggs may have benefitted from her closeness to the mayor’s longest serving and most senior aide, Ingrid Lewis-Martin. Suggs worked under Lewis-Martin in Adams’ office from 2017 to 2021, when he served as Brooklyn Borough President,

She was referred to as Lewis-Martin’s “goddaughter,” said one person familiar with the mayor’s inner circle. Lewis-Martin did not respond to a request for comment.

“She’s like a kid,” the person said, and “she’s not meticulous,” the way Adams himself is. “These kinds of things aren’t going to take him down, they’re just going to take people around him down.”

Besides the mayor’s campaigns, Suggs also worked for the Striving for a Better New York PAC, which was closely aligned with Adams. Suggs was on Miguelina Camilo’s state Senate campaign in 2022 (Camilo is now counsel to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie) and Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Dakota Ramseur’s campaign.

Suggs, too, worked with the Brooklyn Democratic Party — though the party never reported paying her. County Chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn downplayed her role, telling POLITICO she was just a volunteer. But she defended her fellow Brooklynite.

“Brianna is a person that we consider the most highest integrity,” Bichotte said. “She knows the rules and regulations. She is someone who is smart and mild-mannered.”

Suggs has been talking with the campaign attorney after the raid, Adams told PIX 11, but he hasn't: “I haven’t communicated with her since this incident took place.”

A version of this story first appeared in Friday’s New York Playbook. Subscribe here.