Amid rising outrage over the Division of Justice’s plan to dismiss Mayor Adams’ corruption case, the mayor and his legal professionals have insisted there was no quid professional quo settlement with the Trump administration.
However in a letter launched Tuesday, Adams’ lawyer specified by nice element the alternative ways the indictment hanging over Adams’ head made it more durable for him to help with the Trump’s hard-line immigration efforts.
“As his trial grows near, it will be untenable for the mayor to be the ever-present partner that [the Department of Homeland Security] needs to make New York City as safe as possible,” Alex Spiro wrote within the Feb. 3 letter.
“It will be untenable for him to stay on top of city agencies and officials to ensure that his agenda on issues like immigration is being respected. And it will be untenable for him to unify the city around a much-needed rollback of certain sanctuary city policies.”
The letter, made public on Tuesday, offers a glance into the unprecedented talks between Trump’s Division of Justice and the mayor’s authorized workforce as Adams pushed for his case to be dismissed. That course of hits a crucial step Wednesday afternoon in federal courtroom as a choose has demanded the federal government clarify its place in a courtroom listening to.
The rising criticism of Adams has centered on the query of whether or not the deal commits him to get consistent with the Trump White Home, with the specter of the indictment being introduced again nonetheless hanging over his head.
Within the letter — whereas there isn’t a dedication to take any specific motion — Spiro made it clear that the indictment had impeded Adams from taking sure steps to take motion on immigration insurance policies aligned with the priorities of the Trump administration.
With the indictment lifted, Spiro wrote, Adams might extra simply stop the town’s Legislation Division from litigating challenges to immigration enforcement, reopen an ICE workplace on Rikers Island, lend NYPD officers for federal immigration enforcement and block metropolis staff from publicly criticizing the Trump administration’s actions.
Spiro additionally argued that Adams’ safety clearance, jeopardized by the costs, impaired the mayor’s potential, as he wouldn’t be capable to be briefed on some nationwide safety issues. Spiro mentioned this might be “increasingly problematic” as Trump tried to ramp up mass deportations.
The mayor pleaded not responsible to soliciting and accepting bribes and unlawful straw donations to his marketing campaign in change for finishing up favors for the federal government of Turkey in a five-count federal indictment in September.
New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams and his lawyer Alex Spiro seen exterior Manhattan Federal Courtroom after the mayor’s arraignment on bribery and fraud costs on September 27, 2024 in New York Metropolis. (Picture by John Lamparski/Getty Pictures)
Spiro characterised the case as an “unwanted civil war with the federal government” that might occupy “75% of [Adams’] waking hours” within the correspondence, a followup to a Jan. 31 assembly between the DOJ officers, Manhattan federal prosecutors and Adams’ workforce.
Adams has acted on a few of these gadgets. Final week, he informed metropolis staff to keep away from publicly disparaging Trump. He additionally promised to concern an govt order permitting ICE on Rikers.
There was huge fallout from the DOJ memo: 4 of the mayor’s high deputy submitted their resignations on Monday, with two of them citing immigration as a key motive they’ve to depart the administration.
Requires the mayor to resign have intensified, and Gov. Hochul convened a sequence of conferences Tuesday to debate the mayor’s destiny, together with whether or not she ought to use her powers to take away him.
Danielle Sassoon, Manhattan’s high federal prosecutor, resigned in refusal to hold out the Justice Division’s directive to file the dismissal. In her resignation letter, she wrote the mayor agreed to a quid professional quo with the Trump administration: In change for cooperation in immigration enforcement, Adams would obtain leniency in his prison case.
Danielle Sassoon. (Southern District of New York)
Spiro has vehemently denied any quid professional quo settlement.
Spiro additionally claimed the indictment will increase the percentages of Adams being forcibly faraway from workplace and changed by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — a progressive politician a lot much less pleasant to Trump’s priorities.
“Both scenarios are real threats that grow by the day,” Spiro mentioned of the 2 official processes by means of which Adams might be given the boot — both by means of the governor or a particular “inability committee.”
“As Mayor Adams continues to help with DHS’ ramping enforcement operations, the risk that his political opponents— and in particular, the City Council — will try to remove him from power will only increase. Gov. Hochul also could conclude that, at a certain point, the mayor can no longer devote the attention that his position requires and accordingly take steps to remove him.”
Talks of forcing Adams out of workplace have, actually, intensified because the DOJ order turned public.
Initially Revealed: February 19, 2025 at 11:04 AM EST
