Eric Adams Used Private Email for Official Purposes during China-Funded Junket

N ew York mayor Eric Adams and his aides used private email addresses, and possibly a private server, to correspond about official business during a 2014 trip to China, National Review has learned.

This junket, taken by Adams during his first year as Brooklyn borough president, is receiving renewed scrutiny. Federal investigators are reportedly probing the mayoral administration’s ties to Turkey and an alleged straw-donor scheme involving Winnie Greco, a senior adviser to Adams who has facilitated his meetings with Chinese officials. In recent years, alarm at the federal level about China’s efforts to co-opt local officials has grown.

The New York Post first reported on the private emails and possible server this week, though their use for official business had not been revealed. City Hall did not respond to National Review’s request for comment.

In response to a request filed under New York’s Freedom of Information Law last year, the general counsel for the current Brooklyn borough administration said that it could not provide certain documents from Adams’s trip because “this Office would lack access to the prior administration’s records maintained on private servers” and because documents could be on a private Google Drive. The counsel also said that he does “not know either way.”

The use of personal email addresses and servers by New York politicians when conducting official business could violate records-retention guidelines and conceal communications subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Law.

The Sino-America New York Brooklyn Archway Association Corp., a group led by Greco, sought to install in Brooklyn a Chinese friendship archway donated by Beijing’s Chaoyang district, which was one of the stops during Adams’s weeklong trip.

The now-defunct initiative covered trip expenses, according to media reports at the time. Internal correspondence shows that questions about the delegation’s funding were directed to Greco, who was then Adams’s unpaid liaison to the Chinese community.

A trip memo says that the governments of Yiwu, Fuzhou, Xiamen, and Taishan also provided lodging, meals, and transportation during visits to those cities. Adams signed sister-city pacts with Yiwu and Chaoyang.

In an email to aides on May 30, 2014, Adams wrote, referring to the archway fund: “It is not our job to give the cost of any item on the trip. Information of cost of hotel, food, etc that is paid for by china government or the Sino American is not our role to report. . [sic] We don’t ask the government how much they paid for dinner.”  The email continued: “If anyone want that information they must get it from them. In our report we will list the item (ie. food, hotel, travel) and only who paid.”

Adams wrote that message from his official email while he was in China. He also used two private email addresses, voiceofconcern@aol.com and bpericadams@aol.com, to write to aides about a press conference that would take place upon his return, the documents show.

On some emails, Adams staffers also cc’d a third address, bpericadams@gmail.com, in addition to one for then–deputy borough president Diana Reyna, who joined Adams on the trip.

The same day he emailed aides about the press conference, Adams dined with an individual, Harry Lu, whom the FBI arrested last year for setting up an illegal Chinese-regime police station in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Federal prosecutors allege that Lu “has had a longstanding relationship of trust” with the Chinese government. The City first reported that Adams met Lu during the trip.

After his arrest last April, City Hall denied that Adams knew Lu.

But a trip memo obtained by National Review referred to him by his legal name, Lu Jianwang, and identified him as the “President of the American Society of ChangLe.” Other dinner attendees included Chen Xueshun, the president of the American Fujian Association, and Pan Hui, who was called “director of overseas Chinese affairs,” likely referring to Fuzhou’s branch of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, which is part of the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign-influence operations.

Greco returned to Fuzhou in 2019, this time with a delegation representing Adams, who remained in Brooklyn. During a meeting with Fuzhou officials, she sat next to Harry Lu, who was introduced as part of the Brooklyn delegation, NR reported.

The Greco-led delegation also traveled to Yiwu, where it participated in a conference that promoted China’s Belt and Road Initiative, according to the Voice of Chinese, a Chinese-language news website with a pro-Beijing perspective, and video posted online. The delegation hosted a booth that advertised trade opportunities in Brooklyn. On the wall was a big portrait of Adams.