Gillum speaks out on photo showing alleged FBI agent

August 16, 2017

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV)— Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum is speaking out after a new photo has surfaced showing him in New York City with an alleged FBI agent.

“It looks like people hanging out. I really am deeply offended by folks ascribing other meaning to it,” said Gillum.

The photo shows a man known as “Mike Miller”- whom sources have said was an undercover FBI agent- developer Adam Corey, and Gillum. Corey was named in two Grand Jury subpoenas issued in June which requested communication between a list of local movers and shakers and the City of Tallahassee and the Community Redevelopment Agency.

Eyewitness News has reached out to the FBI to confirm that the man in the photo, Mike Miller, is an FBI agent. The agency released this statement:

“The FBI declines to confirm or deny the details of any investigation. This includes providing comment on the identity or potential employment of any specific individuals. However, out of consideration for the persons mentioned in your request, we ask that their faces and any other unique physical traits be obscured in an effort to protect their privacy and safety.”

Gillum said the photo was taken on a trip that happened last year, although he wasn’t sure who took it. He noted he was in New York City on business for his former employer, People for the American Way Foundation.

“I think it’s probably important that I point out I was there for work. (I) went out with them on personal time. There was no city money spent on that trip, no city business discussed. It was frankly a couple of friends getting together,” he said.

Gillum said he was invited out to the boat by Corey, whom he’s been friends and colleagues with for more than two decades. He said that Miller had begun hanging out in the social circle and attending workout sessions with the group. He noted that he had been around town quite frequently.

“When I met (Mike) I met him as a developer who was interested in doing, developing parts of South City Tallahassee. And of course, I’m 1,000 percent in favor of seeing that part of our community invested in and that part of our community developed,” said Gillum.

Gillum said he did not know at the time that Miller may have been an FBI agent. Nor, has it ever been positively confirmed to him that Miller was in fact an undercover agent.

“I did not suspect, but I had no reason to suspect, him being an FBI agent. But, I have to tell you that wouldn’t change anything for me. He just seemed like a normal person. And I had the opportunity to I think get to know him a little bit,” he said.

The trip captured in the photo was in 2016. Gillum said he stopped working for People for the American Way Foundation in February 2017. His last communication with Miller was sometime in March or April of 2017. At that point, he said Miller “disappeared” and that he had no reason to reach back out to him.

Gillum has confirmed that he spoke to the FBI since the launch of the investigation, but maintains he is not the target.

“In the context of this FBI investigation, the reason I have comfort in being able to talk as much as I have about it, is because I have been told and I have no reason to believe based off my actions, that I am anyway involved as a target within this investigation,” he said. “If I thought for a minute, a minute, that I had done something inappropriate and God forbid illegal, I’d be the first one to acknowledge that, but that just hasn’t been my experience.”

Eyewitness News did reach out to Corey, who declined to comment.