NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Eric Adams set up a legal defense fund Friday as federal investigators conduct a public corruption probe focused on his 2021 campaign.

The fund, which will allow the mayor to accept donations outside the normal campaign cycle, is monitored by the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, which posted a suite of documentation Friday on the new fundraising vehicle and was first reported by POLITICO.

The Eric Adams Legal Defense Trust, “is necessitated by, and intended to defray, legal expenses in connection with the inquiries by the office of United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York related to the operations of the Eric Adams 2021 mayoral campaign committee,” reads a signed affidavit from Adams dated Wednesday.

Adams will be able to take donations up to $5,000, per the law, and will have to report the names and address of contributors giving $100 to the Conflicts of Interest Board each quarter. Adams’ first report would be due Jan. 15.

But not everybody can give — the law bars Adams’ subordinates in government from donating, as well as anyone doing business with the city.

Federal investigators are looking for evidence the campaign colluded with the government of Turkey and accepted illegal donations from Turkish citizens routed through straw donors. While FBI agents conducted a series of raids and interviews Nov. 2, no one has been accused of wrongdoing.

Adams recently alluded to the idea that he might use campaign funds to pay for private legal representation from WilmerHale — the white-shoe firm that his previous chief counsel recently rejoined. However, Friday’s revelation indicates he will try to get at least some of the cash from new donors.

The trustee of the fund is Peter Aschkenasy, who chaired a nonprofit affiliated with the mayor’s previous role as Brooklyn borough president that helped boost Adams’ public profile ahead of his mayoral run.

A longtime restaurateur, Aschkenasy told POLITICO he does not expect to be involved with fundraising but is simply serving as a treasurer.

The law firm Pitta LLP, which did campaign finance compliance for Adams’ campaign, is also listed on documents creating the trust.

“After consultation with the Campaign Finance Board and the Conflicts of Interest Board, it was determined that a trust should be created for any legal expenses,” the firm’s co-managing partner Vito Pitta said in a statement.

A letter to Adams from the mayor’s corporation counsel, Sylvia Hinds-Radix, notes the creation of the fund negates the involvement of her office in the matter.

“Based on the information known to us at this time, the Office of the Corporation Counsel does not and will not represent you in your individual capacity in this investigation or in any future investigations or matters arising from this investigation, whether civil or criminal in nature,” she wrote.

This version of a legal defense fund was created by the New York City Council in 2019 as a way to allow elected officials with mounting legal bills to accept money in excess of the city’s $50 gift ban — a structure designed to discourage bribery.

At the time, former Mayor Bill de Blasio had run up a roughly $300,000 legal tab in connection to a federal investigation into his own political fundraising. He had expressed support for the idea of a legal defense fund but never set one up himself.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A Florida law blocking Gov. Ron DeSantis’ publicly funded travel records from the public is unconstitutional and the state should be required to turn them over, asserts a legal challenge filed by The Washington Post.

The Post’s lawsuit marks the first effort to challenge the law, which the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature passed just weeks before DeSantis officially announced a run for president.

GOP legislators said that the law — which applied not just to future travels but also to trips DeSantis had already taken — was needed to protect the safety of the governor and his family. But Democrats said the move was made to help out with the governor’s political ambitions by shielding his travel from public scrutiny.

The media organization first sued the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the agency which keeps DeSantis’ travel records, over the summer after it rebuffed the Post over four separate public records requests. Florida Circuit Judge Angela Dempsey ordered FDLE to turn over all “nonexempt public records” following a September court hearing, but the agency said certain records were exempt due to the new law.

In late October, lawyers for the Post filed a 25-page motion asking that Dempsey order the law-enforcement agency to hand over additional records, asserting that the travel records exemption was overly broad and unconstitutional. Florida voters in 1992 passed a “Sunshine amendment” that guarantees the public’s access to government records and open meetings.

“The exemption sweeps from public view every record relating in any way to the expenditure of millions of taxpayer dollars each year, including the most basic information needed to inform the public about what those services are for, when they were provide, who received them and why,” states the motion filed by the Post’s lawyers. “The Florida Constitution prohibits such a gaping disconnect between the narrow justification for an exemption and its sweeping coverage.”

Dempsey, who earlier this year sided with lawyers from the DeSantis administration and ruled that the governor can withhold records under a never-before-applied doctrine of “executive privilege,” is scheduled to consider the Post’s motion at a January hearing.

A Post spokesperson said the company does not comment on pending litigation. POLITICO is using the same law firm representing The Post — Ballard Spahr — to raise questions about FDLE’s ongoing delay to comply with public record requests made by POLITICO.

DeSantis’ travels, including his use of state jets acquired after he became governor as well his reliance on private planes either chartered or owned by GOP donors, have come under scrutiny, especially after he began his campaign for president.

POLITICO previously raised questions about flights he took during a book promotional tour shortly before he officially began his campaign. The Washington Post reported in September about undisclosed flights DeSantis took between his election in 2018 and his inauguration while POLITICO reported last month that Florida’s former economic development agency paid nearly $1.6 million for an international trade mission. The bulk of the money was spent on two chartered jets that took the governor, along with first lady Casey DeSantis and other state officials and business leaders, to stops in Japan, South Korea, Israel and England.

The Post states that in April of this year — which was before the new law took effect — the news organization asked FDLE for all records related to DeSantis’ plane travel dating back to January 2019. After the initial court order demanding the state turn over some records, the Post’s legal filing states FDLE discussed what it would turn over and provided examples of travel records in its possession, including memorandums concerning reimbursements paid to DeSantis’ reelection campaign for use of the state plane.

But FDLE did not hand over all those records and instead gave the Post copies of annual FDLE reports that track overall spending by the agency on security and transportation costs. In the court filing, the Post attorneys maintained the agency decided to “renege on the parties deal.”