The dismissal of bribery charges against Eric Adams has upended New York politics and paved the way for his possible reelection, according to reports.
THE NEW YORK POST | Published February 15, 2025
On Friday, the not-so-surprising news sailed across the transom that President Trump’s Department of Justice moved to dismiss the five-count bribery case against New York City’s fun-loving Mayor Adams.
The DOJ cited concerns that the charges were retribution against Adams for criticizing the Biden administration’s immigration policies — and that they “improperly interfered with Mayor Adams’ campaign in the 2025 mayoral election.”
Indeed, the DOJ letter stipulates that Adams’s case will be reviewed again by prosecutors after November’s ballot.
Hizzoner’s many rivals in the mayoral primary were quick to pounce.
In particular, Democratic challengers to Adams’s left claimed that this prosecutorial pause gives Trump dangerous leverage over Adams.
Volubly progressive candidate and state Sen. Zellnor Myrie insisted the temporary dismissal puts Adams “under the thumb and control of Donald Trump until November.”
And staunchly left-leaning City Comptroller Brad Lander echoed: “It puts the mayor on a tether to Donald Trump every time he harms or threatens New York City.”
But while it’s true that being deeply Trump-aligned can be a liability for Eric Adams here in lefty NYC, his alliances also shore up Adams’s tough-on-crime and tough-on-terror image.
This may be some advantage at a time when most Democrats in the mayoral primary are floundering when it comes to sounding tough-on-crime. (And at least one likely GOP candidate, Curtis Sliwa, has crime as his only issue.)
The president’s dismissal of Adam’s charges gives Trump dangerous leverage over the mayor, critics have warned.Shutterstock
Indeed, no matter what disgusted liberal New Yorkers may feel about DOGE purges or about Trump’s transgender policies, the president is clearly committed to getting illegal gangbangers out of America and to getting Hamas terrorists out of Gaza.
Even though Trump’s graces may come with a taint for Adams, the association may reinforce Adams’s image as the guy who will get slashers and murderers out of the subway system.
And this could be decisive even among Democrats in the upcoming primary contest: half the respondents in a Manhattan Institute poll of NYC voters this month cited “crime and public safety” as their chief concern.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo looks to be Eric Adams’ most likely opponent for his campaign to return to Gracie Mansion.Ron Sachs – CNP for NY Post
New Yorkers are particularly wigged out about random violence, widespread disorder, and the tripling of antisemitic incidents last year.
Indeed, citizens’ outrage over dangerous, repeat criminals roaming Gotham’s streets has made reducing recidivism a leading crusade for incoming NYPD police commissioner Jessica Tisch.
In this atmosphere, NYC voters may actually feel heartened by the idea of a mayor beholden to the commander-in-chief, whose newly unleashed Department of Homeland Security immediately sent rapists and pedophiles out of NYC apartments and straight on out of the country.
Compare this to candidate Lander, whose soft-on-crime track record includes using contorted data to argue — dishonestly — that bail reform was not boosting reoffending.
He recently consoled New Yorkers “stressed out about lack of safety” by claiming: “I’m making a commitment to all of you: when I’m mayor we will end…subway homelessness of severely mentally ill people in New York City.” Lander insisted he’d accomplish this “through a continuum of care and services, some enforcement but primarily with the path to housing.”
Sure, guy. But NYC voters — 89% of whom want to expand involuntary confinement for the dangerously deranged — might understandably feel that a mayor aligned with Trump would take a more effective tack.
Similarly, Jewish New Yorkers are fed up with a city where chronically criminal antisemites remain active on streets and campuses.
Just this month, Anas Saleh, who screamed into a packed subway car that it’s Zionists’ “last chance to get out,” received no more punishment than bias training and piddling community service.
Compare this to Trump’s recent intervention in the snail’s-pace hostage returns from Gaza. Trump’s threats of “hell” to Hamas if captured Israelis are not promptly delivered, contributed to the over a dozen who have returned in recent weeks.
Voters may ultimately warm up to Adams’ newly burnished tough-on-crime bona fides.AFP via Getty Images
No wonder Trump received a walloping 50% hike in support among NY’s Jewish voters last November.
Democratic Socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani, an assemblyman from Queens, also passionately denounced the DOJ’s dismissal of Adams on Monday. Mamdani, who counts emaciated Israeli hostages among perpetrators of genocide, has frequently had to defend himself from charges of antisemitism and lamely protesting that New York has a “beautiful Jewish population.”
Uh-huh.
Who could blame Big Apple voters for finding a tether to President Trump more reassuring than disturbing when it comes to routing out encroaching anti-Jewish threats?
Democratic Socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mandani speaks during a press conference on Universal Child Care at Columbus Park Playground on November 19, 2024.Getty Images
Adams’s primary opponents can criticize the DOJ’s dismissal of his charges all they want.
But if they actually hope to beat Adams, candidates should talk less about his ties to crime-fighter-in-chief Trump — and more about how they will keep Gothamites safe.
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.nypost.com
RELATED: US Justice Department asks court to dismiss charges against NYC mayor
New York Mayor Eric Adams attends an awards ceremony in New York on Feb. 13, 2025. The U.S. Justice Department asked a court to dismiss corruption charges against Adams the same day.
VOICE OF AMERICA | Published February 15, 2025
NEW YORK —
The U.S. Justice Department asked a court Friday to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, with a top official from Washington intervening after federal prosecutors in Manhattan rebuffed his demands to drop the case and some quit in protest.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, the department’s second-in-command, and lawyers from the public integrity section and criminal division filed paperwork asking to end the case. They contend that it was marred by appearances of impropriety and that letting it continue would interfere with the mayor’s reelection bid.
A judge must still approve the request.
The filing came hours after Bove convened a call with the prosecutors in the Justice Department’s public integrity section — which handles corruption cases — and gave them an hour to pick two people to sign onto the motion to dismiss, saying those who did so could be promoted, according to a person familiar with the matter.
After prosecutors got off the call with Bove, the consensus among the group was that they would all resign. But a veteran prosecutor stepped up out of concern for the jobs of the younger people in the unit, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the private meeting.
The three-page dismissal motion bore Bove’s signature and the names of Edward Sullivan, the public integrity section’s senior litigation counsel, and Antoinette Bacon, a supervisory official in the department’s criminal division. No one from the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan, which brought the Adams case, signed the document.
FILE – Emil Bove, then an attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump and now acting deputy attorney general, sits in a Manhattan criminal court during Trump’s sentencing in a hush money case in New York on Jan. 10, 2025.
The move came five days into a showdown between Justice Department leadership in Washington and its Manhattan office, which has long prided itself on its independence as it has taken on Wall Street malfeasance, political corruption and international terrorism. At least seven prosecutors in Manhattan and Washington quit rather than carry out Bove’s directive to halt the case, including interim Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon and the acting chief of the public integrity section in Washington.
The Justice Department said in its motion to Judge Dale E. Ho that it was seeking to dismiss Adams’ charges with the option of refiling them later. Ho had yet to act on the request as of Friday evening.
“I imagine the judge is going to want to explore what his role is under the rules,” said Joshua Naftalis, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor who is not involved in Adams’ case. “I would expect the court to either ask the parties to come in person to court or to file papers, or both.”
Bove said earlier this week that U.S. President Donald Trump’s permanent, appointed Manhattan U.S. attorney, who has yet to be confirmed by the Senate, can decide whether to refile the charges after the November election.
Adams faces a Democratic primary in June, with several challengers lined up. His trial had been on track to be held in the spring. Bove said that continuing the prosecution would interfere with Adams’ ability to govern, posing “unacceptable threats to public safety, national security, and related federal immigration initiatives and policies,” the dismissal motion said.
Among other things, it said, the case caused Adams to be denied access to sensitive information necessary to help protect the city.
Adams pleaded not guilty in September to charges he accepted more than $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks from foreign nationals looking to buy his influence while he was Brooklyn borough president campaigning to be mayor. Although critical in the past, Adams has bonded at times with Trump recently and visited him at his Florida golf club last month.
The president has criticized the case against Adams and said he was open to giving the mayor, who was a registered Republican in the 1990s, a pardon.
Bove sent a memo Monday directing Sassoon, a Republican, to drop the case. He argued the mayor was needed in Trump’s immigration crackdown and echoed Adams’ claims that the case was retaliation for his criticism of Biden administration immigration policies.
Instead of complying, Sassoon resigned Thursday, along with five high-ranking Justice Department officials in Washington. A day earlier, she sent a letter to Trump’s new attorney general, Pam Bondi, asking her to meet and reconsider the directive to drop the case.
Sassoon suggested in her letter that Ho “appears likely to conduct a searching inquiry” as to why the case should be dismissed. She noted that in at least one instance, a judge has rejected such a request as contrary to the public interest.
“A rigorous inquiry here would be consistent with precedent and practice in this and other districts,” she wrote.
Seven former Manhattan U.S. attorneys, including James Comey, Geoffrey S. Berman and Mary Jo White, issued a statement lauding Sassoon’s “commitment to integrity and the rule of law.”
On Friday, Hagan Scotten, an assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan who worked for Sassoon and had a leading role in Adams’ case, became the seventh prosecutor to resign — and blasted Bove in the process. Scotten wrote in a resignation letter to Bove that it would take a “fool” or a “coward” to meet his demand to drop the charges, “But it was never going to be me.” He told Bove he was “entirely in agreement” with Sassoon’s decision.
Scotten and other Adams case prosecutors were suspended with pay on Thursday by Bove, who launched a probe of the prosecutors that he said would determine whether they kept their jobs.
Scotten is an Army veteran who earned two Bronze medals serving in Iraq as a Special Forces troop commander. He graduated from Harvard Law School at the top of his class in 2010 and clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts.
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.voanews.com
