Eric Adams Must Go

There is no question that Eric Adams is corrupt. In September, he was accused of, among other things, receiving unreported benefits from business people and a government official from Turkey, applying pressure to FDNY to skip a fire inspection on his patrons' behalf, and defrauding the city of New York out of $10 million in public campaign fund subsidies.

The top members of his administration clearly had no faith in either his innocence or that he had covered his tracks particularly well, because the moment they caught wind of an investigation they fled like rats from a sinking ship. Since September, we New Yorkers have been waiting for this to play out, hoping for a resignation or removal. Instead, we have been left to endure for now and do the job ourselves at the ballot box later this year.

The situation has changed, and we cannot wait one moment longer. Donald Trump is seeking to leverage the charges against Adams to control the executive branch of New York City. They are so open with this plan that it kicked off a series of resignations by the people who were meant to put it into place.

Interim US Attorney for the Southern District Danielle Sassoon, the first in this chain of seven resignations, explicitly stated that Adams’ lawyers “repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department's enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.” A member of Sassoon’s team was chastised by Trump’s acting number two at the DOJ for taking notes, and those notes were collected at the end of the meeting. Hagan Scotten, who resigned from the Southern District the next day, called out the disgraceful and unlawful tactic of using “the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.”

This is not just a local issue. This is the beginning of Trump’s personalization of power, his first step to subordinate otherwise politically hostile jurisdictions to his authority. By seeking to drop the charges against Adams rather than pardoning him, he not only rewards Adams for his loyalty but retains the option of bringing those charges back should Adams defect, something that Scotten specifically called out in his public letter.

Trump’s corruption is even less hidden than Adams’s; indeed, brazenness is central to the entire approach. Why hide when no one will hold you accountable, and when the man at the top of your spoils system holds the power to pardon any federal crime?

As New Yorkers, we cannot sit and take this. We owe it to ourselves, yes, but we also owe it to our country. We cannot wait until June or November. Every day that Eric Adams remains in Gracie Mansion is a day too many. A few hundred protesters is not nearly enough for a city of eight million. We must flood the streets. We must change Hochul’s political calculus.

We must turn out in large numbers and demand that Adams either step down or be removed. After initially rejecting the idea, Hochul now appears to be considering removing him, as is her right under both state law and the New York City charter. We must call Hochul’s office to encourage her to take this path. While we are at it, we must call our New York assembly members and senators, who cannot remove Adams themselves but can pressure Hochul to do so. The Comptroller has threatened to “convene a meeting of the Inability Committee,” another body that holds the power to remove him. Call your city council member to demand their support for this course of action.

There are many ways that Adams might leave office, and we should pursue all of them until one of them sticks. We need to get Trump’s agent out of the mayor’s office by any means necessary.

Whether we succeed today or not, I will be a single issue voter in the mayoral primaries this year. I will be looking for a candidate who can bring the same adversarial stance to the mayor’s office that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has brought to representing New York’s 14th congressional district. That, more than any other quality, is what the city, and the country, will need for the foreseeable future.

Featured image is Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden visit to USA and UNGA, by Kirsty O'Connor