The reports are full of drama, with tales of resignations, indictments and chatter about the🙈 next head to roll.
Or as New Yorkers say, it’s another day in the tenure of Mayor Eric Adams.
Gothamites attuned to the messy history of local government realize we are living ღin a unique moment, the legendary crooks of Tammany Hall notwithstanding.
Although a long line of Tammany bosses set the 💜standard for carrying out graft on an industrial scale over decades, the federal charges against Adams and the ongoing probes into top players in his administration appear to be relatively modest by comparison.
Despite headline-grabbing words like wire fraud and ജbribery, neither quid nor quo is earth💙-shattering.
That Adams allegedly got airline upgrades and free or reduced-rate hotel stays isn’t exactl☂y the stuff of Public Enemy No. 1.
Still, the Adams gang is makin⛦g a distinct contribution to city lo🍎re.
Because the scandals come at time when mo⛦st New Yorkers believe the city is in decline and that the Democratic Party has exhausted itself and lacks credible successors, and because the Republican Party is on life support, there is no great public movement clamoring for the mayor to resign.
Remarkable reaction
Aside from a relative handfu𝓀l of Dems calling for his head, including some who want his jobಌ, the lack of anything close to a consensus is remarkable.
After all,♕ Adams is the first mayor eꦕver to be indicted in office and wasn’t especially popular before this.
He narrowly won the primary in 2021 on the strength of his anti-crime experience and platform and predictably coasted to victor𒁏y in the general election.
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He’s made progress in the fight against criꦰme, but has largely been an erratic mana🌜ger.
His migrant policies served as invitations, and the city is worse off as a resu🔴lt.
He also surrounded himself with cronജies, some of whom are now in the sights of 😼prosecutors.
The multiple probes create the im♌pression that the administration is a “criminal enterprise,” one plugged-in Dem told me.
Nonetheless, Adams is benefiting because there isn’t an obvious upgrade waiting in the wings. Certainly there’s no groundswell for having Public Advocate Jumaane Williams step in as acting mayor if 🐠Adams were to depart mid-term, as the City Charter requires.
Williams is widely regarded as both hopelessly far left and a lightweight, a combination that would quicꦛkly drive the city into an even deeper ditch.
Thus, there’s little support for a bum’s rush of the ꦿincumbent.
It’s also a factor that most of the five counဣ🌳ts against him are narrow enough that they aren’t likely to result in slam-dunk convictions by a New York jury.
Acquittal or a hung jury arꦅe obvious possibilities.
All of which gi𝓀ves Adams, the city’s second black mayor, an argument for sꦬtaying on the job and even seeking a second term next year.
As he said Tuesday, “I am going to serve my term and 💧run for the election.”
He added, “I think my attorneys are going to show both sides.”🐽
Part of the legal effort involves trying to discredit key pro𒐪secution witness Rana Abbasova, an Adams staffer who coordinated illegal straw donations from foreigners and the improper travel upgrades, according to the indictment against him.
Scorched-earth plan
Soonꦡ after prosecutors complied with a requirement to turn over information about Abbasova that could help the mayor, his lawyer, Alex Spiro, crowed to NBC 4 New York that “these prosecutors, finally, after much delay and misdirection, have admitted they were hiding Brady material about the key witness in the case that proves Mayor Adams is innocent.”
P꧂erhaps, but it would be very unusual for the feds to bring a case that could be destroyed so quickly.
It’s more likely that Spiro’s claim illustrates🐲 the defense’s scorched-earth plan to try to sow reasonable doubt in the public mind about his client’s guilt.
Adams also is playi✨ng his part in the aggressive defense.
While trying to show he’s working hard at his day job, he has been meeting and holding press conferences with the old-line♏ black establishment, such as Hazel Dukes of the NAACP and the R𝕴ev. Herbert Daughtry, a fiery Brooklyn pastor and civil rights leader.
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Dukes is 92 and Daughtry is 93.
Not to be left out, the Rev. Al Sharpton argued that Adams “should not be re♛moved” just because he was indicted.
Sharpton cited the case of New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, who resigned only after a federal jury convicted him of 16 counts, including bribery, acting as a foreign agent for Egypt and obstructio𒆙n of justice.
For Adams to be pushed out of City Hall on the 🙈basis of an indictment would create a double st🎶andard, Sharpton claimed.
Adams’ determination to stay further complicates the job of Gov. Kathy Hochul.
She has the power to remove the mayor without a conviction, and se꧃emed to be leaning in that direction after the indictment landed.
“While I review my options and obligations as the governor of New York, I expect the mayor to take the next few days to review the situati⭕on and find an appropriate path forward,” Hochul said then.
“We must give New Yorkers confidence that there is steady, responsible leadership at e♒very level of government,” she added. 🃏;
It wasn’t as simple as it initially seemed.
Adams wasn’t going to quit and Hochul might ha𒁏🔯ve sunk her own career by forcing him out.
Dems avoiding civil war
And i🍎t wouldn’t help Dems to get into a civil war on the eve of the November☂ elections.
Recall that Hochul “paused” the city’s congestion pricing scheme over the summer, at least in part because the tax could have upended Dem House candidates in t🍒he suburbs, where the tax was widely unpopular.
On Adams, she seems to have baꦰcked off until she sees which way the wind is blowing after the elections. Instead, she has settled💫 for telling him to “clean house.”
Hence the near-daily departures, with most of those leav🔯ing caught up in at least one of the four federal 𒁏probes.
The two top deputy mayors, Sheena Wright and Philip Banks III, have “resigned,” as did Schools Chanꦏcellor David Banks, Philip’s brother.
A third brother, Terence Banks, a retired MTA official, has also come under federal scru🤪tiny.
Wright and all three broඣ🤪thers have been subjected to FBI searches of their homes, though none has been charged.
Ditto for former Police Commissioner Edwওard Caban, who left aft﷽er being implicated in a probe of the NYPD’s enforcement of nightlife establishments.
Caban’s twin brother, Edward, is🃏 reportedly a focus o♐ver allegations he acted as a fixer between the department and bars and restaurants.
The oddity is that nearly all of those forced out have not been𒆙 charged with crimes, while the mayor has.
It’s an unstable situation andᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ my bet is that another shoe will drop — with Adams’ name on it.
The feds sug🐼gested they will bring additional charges against him. If they do and if they are serious, expect the dam of public opinion to break.