Tuesday,
February 11, 2025
Year : 2, Issue: 24
Fox Newa, NY: The Department of Justice has ordered federal prosecutors in Manhattan to drop the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, arguing in a remarkable departure from long-standing norms that the case was interfering with the mayor’s ability to aid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
What’s next:
Mayor Adams is expected to speak at 12 p.m. It’s unclear the exact topic, but FOX 5 NY will carry the address LIVE on our YouTube page.
What we know:
In a two-page memo obtained by FOX 5 NY, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove told prosecutors in New York that they were “directed to dismiss” the bribery charges against Adams immediately.
Bove said the order was not based on the strength of evidence in the case, but rather because it had been brought too close to Adams’ reelection campaign and was distracting from the mayor’s efforts to assist in the Trump administration’s law-and-order priorities.
“The pending prosecution has unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime,” Bove wrote.
The memo also ordered prosecutors in New York not to take “additional investigative steps” against the Democrat until after November’s mayoral election, though it left open the possibility that charges could be refiled after that following a review.
The intervention and reasoning – that a powerful defendant could be too occupied with official duties to face accountability for alleged crimes – marked an extraordinary deviation from long-standing Justice Department norms.
What they’re saying:
An attorney for Adams, Alex Spiro, said the Justice Department’s order had vindicated the mayor’s claim of innocence.
“As I said from the outset, the mayor is innocent—and he would prevail. Today he has,” Spiro said in part in a statement. “The Department of Justice has reevaluated this case and determined it should not go forward. There is good reason for that.”
A spokesperson for the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, declined to comment. The case against Adams was brought under the previous U.S. attorney for the district, Damien Williams, who stepped down before Trump became president.
Several of the mayor’s opponents in the Democratic mayoral primary claimed that Adams had agreed to do Trump’s bidding because he hoped for leniency.
“Instead of standing up for New Yorkers, Adams is standing up for precisely one person,” said Brad Lander, the city’s comptroller and a mayoral challenger.
Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblymember who is also running for mayor, called for an investigation into whether Adams “cut any kind of deal with the Trump administration that involves breaking city law.”
“It seems clear that the person we’ve had in City Hall the last several months is the real Eric Adams, and New Yorkers shouldn’t forget that,” NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said in part in a statement. “He owes New Yorkers what he has refused to demonstrate to date: honesty, transparency, humility, and some assurance that he can make up for his many bad decisions that got us here.”
Timeline:
Adams was indicted on federal criminal charges in September 2024, with prosecutors alleging that Adams took bribes from foreign nationals and illegal campaign contributions in exchange for favors.
Trump had hinted at the possibility of a pardon in December, telling reporters that the mayor had been “treated pretty unfairly.” He had also claimed, without offering evidence, that Adams was being persecuted for criticizing former President Joe Biden’s policies on immigration.
After Trump’s inauguration, Adams’ lawyers had approached senior Justice Department officials, asking them to intervene and drop the case.
The backstory:
Adams was accused of accepting luxury travel perks and illegal campaign contributions from foreign nationals in exchange for political favors, including helping Turkish officials resolve city approvals for a diplomatic building in Manhattan.
Adams, who was elected as a Democrat, has been appearing to move to the right politically in recent months, expressing a willingness to roll back the city’s so-called sanctuary policies and pledged not to publicly criticize a president whose policies he once described as “abusive.”
In recent weeks, he implied that Trump’s agenda would be better for New York than former President Joe Biden’s.
