February 20, 2025 - 10:00am
New York City Mayor Eric Adams faces a June primary election in his quest for a second term, but if a significant portion of the local Democrat Party have their way he will leave office before a single vote is cast. Pressure is rising — largely from other elected officials — for Adams to resign or, failing that, for Governor Kathy Hochul to exercise her power to remove him from City Hall.
It would be an extraordinary measure for a governor to remove the mayor of America’s largest city, especially when his alleged wrongdoing remains unclear. The Supreme Court has set the bar for proving public corruption very high, and Adams’s alleged acceptance of business class upgrades from Turkish Airlines in exchange for asking the Fire Department to take a look at expediting the processing of certain certificates of occupancy for the Turkish consulate seems like a weak case. Both former governor Andrew Cuomo and former mayor Bill de Blasio were in the middle of much more serious corruption charges, and neither man was ever indicted.
The timing of the Joe Biden Department of Justice’s indictment was also a little suspicious: Adams, a Democrat, had bucked party discipline by criticising Biden’s migration policies while the then-president was running for re-election.
Earlier this month, Trump’s DOJ called on the acting prosecutor in New York’s Southern District to suspend its case against Adams, in what has been interpreted as a quid pro quo. Then, fast-forward to today, eight prosecutors in New York’s Southern District resigned rather than be seen as Trump’s hatchet-men, and so the DOJ has asked the judge in the case to dismiss the charges. Judge Dale E. Ho heard arguments yesterday from prosecutors and Adams’s lawyers as to why he ought to end the case; no one was present to argue the other side. Judge Ho asked Mayor Adams directly if he had been promised anything or otherwise threatened in some way by the DOJ; he said he hadn’t. But it really shouldn’t matter — the President and the Department of Justice have total discretion as to which cases they pursue or not.
It is unlikely that Governor Hochul will remove the Mayor from office, whatever Judge Ho decides to do. She is facing her own re-election in 2026 and cannot afford to alienate black downstate voters who comprise Eric Adams’s base. It is also unlikely that Adams will resign. American urban history is replete with big-city mayors who have suffered enormous scandals and yet withstood calls to step down. Sharpe James of Newark, Kwame Kilpatrick of Detroit, Marion Barry of Washington, and Buddy Cianci of Providence, among others, were all indicted on much more serious charges than Adams faces, and they stuck it out. Barry and Cianci even went to jail, and then won re-election.
Aside from former governor Andrew Cuomo, who is yet to announce, Adams remains the front-runner in the Democratic primary. His opponents are mostly to the Mayor’s Left in a political climate where even New York City’s voters have shifted Right. When even black and Latino New Yorkers approve of Trump’s deportation plans, it’s hard to generate much popular enthusiasm for resisting ICE. If Adams does leave the race, it’s Cuomo’s to lose.
It’s a measure of how wretched New York City politics is that two such compromised, transactional, and ethically challenged political veterans as Adams and Cuomo are the most popular candidates for office. But the alternatives, with their calls for public control of the housing market and significantly less policing, are even less palatable.
Seth Barron is managing editor of The American Mind and author of The Last Days of New York.
SethBarronNYC
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SubscribeThis hooha around Adams somehow puts me in mind of the hooha around Austrian real estate mogul René Benko.
This guy came from modest beginnings (I believe his mother was a teacher, his father worked for the council) but became insanely rich in the real estate business in the last 20 years or so.
Now, you just don’t get that rich in Austria unless you’re upto no good somewhere along the line. But, for as long as you stay on the right side of the right people and the political winds still blow your way, you can sit back and enjoy the spoils.
Unfortunately for Benko that all went belly-up and he’s now sitting in a jail cell somewhere.
I believe that most politicians are taking back-handers and enjoying non-kosher advantages somewhere along the line. And those that end up being hauled over the coals aren’t any worse than the others: they’ve just taken a misstep and managed to annoy someone more powerful than them.
To bark about the rule of law in these cases is absurd and takes the public for fools.
I would not deny the hypocrisy, but there are two ways to deal with it. Either you punish corruption when it happens to come up, thus discouraging future corruption, Or you give impunity to the corrupt when someone exposes them, thus encouraging future corruption. You seem to prefer the second approach.
Even a hypocritical norm is better than impunity – at least it forces the corrupt to be discreet and impose a cost on the worst excesses.
Here’s a surprise – I completely agree with you! Corruption is always at the top of what ‘the people’ absolutely hate – it has to be prosecuted.
But corruption is in the eye of the beholder. “The people” knew Adams, Biden and a whole host of other elected representatives, such as Mike Madigan in the state of Illinois, were corrupt when they were elected. In Mr. Madigan’s case he was re-elected over 40 years. Look at all the union presidents. It all depends on who gets the benefit that determines the level of hate. We are all corrupt to someone!
I agree; I think I am cynical about stuff like this due to where I live. To live peacefully in Austria and not be in a constant state of apoplexy, a certain resignation is required with regard to corruption and what we call “Freunderlwirtschaft” (i.e. friends in high places helping each other out by means fair and foul).
We can’t all be like the Scandinavians.
I think about this a lot. During WW2 my parents lived in a town and rationing meant that my mother (she told me later) was always saying things like, “I’d kill for an egg to have for my breakfast.” Her sister, who lived a few streets away, knew somebody who knew somebody who could find a few eggs and she did eat the occasional egg – even offering a couple to my mother. My mother refused because that would have been The Black Market which was, allegedly, ruining the country. After the war this caused a lot of friction between the sisters.
My wife’s parents lived in the country and they knew the local farmer, who always had an egg as a special present. They saw nothing wrong with eating eggs in wartime. Similarly, in the USSR during communism local officials took presents from those around them – very small presents like a few eggs.
So, where does corruption truly begin? If everyone around you is just a little corrupt, does that mean that corruption is OK? If an MP is taken out to dinner at an expensive restaurant, is that corruption? If he/she is given a foreign holiday, it becomes more obvious. For me, I agree with my mother and I would not accept the egg but I am probably in the minority (and stupid).
To me, the most overused expression in the English language is, “Well, we’re only on this Earth once, so we might as well enjoy ourselves.” which is an excuse for all kinds of moral corruption.
I’ve got a similar story about WW2, but it’s an intergenerational, slightly tenuous one.
My great-grandfather was a grocer in Derby; my dad (his grandson) has said several times in the past about my Nana (the grocer’s daughter, my paternal grandmother) quite disparagingly that “she could have cream cakes any time she wanted” during the war because her dad dealt in food.
I’m not sure to what extent this was to do with corruption as such and that my dad lobs such accusations is a bit rich considering he was born in 1948 and overeats in an almost professional capacity. But it all goes back to this idea of fairness and people all playing by the rules of which corruption is a part.
To be honest, I’d wolf down that cream cake if I could. Probably on my own out of sight, but I’d do it.
But I guess it’s a question of morals and inhibitions – but also of the risk and how accessible it is to you. Stuffing a naughty cream cake down your neck is fairly easy if it’s right there. Going back to René Benko – he took risks that I simply can’t because I don’t move in the same rarefied circles.
You have no idea of how many times I’ve complained bitterly over the last 20 years I’ve lived in Austria that here, the honest man is the dumbest one around. He always ends up with the worst deal.And sometimes I wish I could bring myself to be a bit naughtier – push forward in queues sometimes (a national sport here). But I can’t.
I have probably related this before. I remember spending time in Communist Czechoslovakia and heard several times the phrase “ He who doesn’t steal from the State steals from his family”. It did suggest a level of cynical corruption that didn’t exist at that time in the UK that I have since associated with Communism.
So, do “nice guys finish last”? As a matter of fact, yes, this is often true. However, the prizes that the “not-nice guys” get aren’t worth the candle. After all, you can’t take it with you …..
I thought the most overused expression in the English language is, “Of course I love you”.
A US citizen I do not know as much about the details of the Adam’s case as I should but I do know one thing: Adam’s had the temerity to stand up publicly and denounce October 7th, support his Jewish constituents (and Western values), and call little Ivy League Jihadists to account during a time when it was politically risky to do so… He better be proven clearly and materially corrupt before I give up on him – a real man in a sea of pathetic whining babies…
So it’s fine that he’s (allegedly) a crook, as long as he supports your chosen causes?
Well, if we are really talking about corruption, then how is it that members of Congress seem to become millionaires once they enter office? Why is it that banks get bailed out during financial crises—ironically caused by those same banks—while the people do not? No one on earth becomes a billionaire without some level of shady dealings along the way. So, this man is no different from those pursuing him, but I have a different take on the outcome.
The NY political machine will eliminate him—either in the primaries or, if that fails, in the general election if they do not forcefully remove as they are trying to now. But regardless, Trump will likely reward him with an even more strategic position to make sure he remains a thorn in their side.
Euphemism of the day: Corruption (lobbying), bribery (campaign financing), and donation (legalized influence-peddling) in U.S. politics are often indistinguishable, as money flows through PACs (political favors), super PACs (dark money laundering), and corporate sponsorships (policy buying). Nothing can ever go wrong!