The Eric Adams indictment says one of his staffers excused herself during a meeting with the FBI to delete encrypted messaging apps.
Digital security appears to be a fixation of New York Mayor Eric Adams and his staff, at least according to his indictment on multiple charges, including soliciting and receiving campaign contributions from a foreign national, bribery, and wire fraud. But then why were they so bad at it? Case in point: The indictment quotes a text message exchange between Adams and an unnamed staffer, in which the staffer allegedly tells Adams to “be o[n the] safe side Please Delete all messages you send me.” Adams, according to the indictment, texts back, “Always do.” It goes without saying that this policy of deleting messages did not prevent investigators from discovering these communications. Nor did an alleged attempt by the same staff member to delete encrypted messaging apps after asking for a bathroom break during a meeting with FBI agents. The staff member, according to the indictment, asked to excuse herself from the conversation, then removed from her phone the apps she had used to communicate with Adams, a Turkish official who coordinated various dealings with Adams, and others. This is not the first time the run-to-the-bathroom-to-flush-messages-down-the-toilet trick has been attempted. When Apple sued former iOS engineer Andrew Aude for allegedly leaking information on upcoming Apple products, the complaint noted that “Feigning the need to visit the bathroom mid-interview, Mr. Aude then extracted his iPhone from his pocket during the break and permanently deleted significant amounts of evidence from his device,” which included the popular encrypted messaging app Signal.
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