The blunt, dishonest memo from the Trump administration’s Justice Department ordering an end to the criminal prosecution of Mayor Adams is a key step in the president’s campaign to warp the legal system into a tool for advancing his political aims. Veteran prosecutors say they’ve never seen such a ham-handed directive from Washington — instructing local prosecutors to drop a public-corruption case while also asserting that “the Justice Department has reached this conclusion without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based.”
Whatever one thinks of the merits of U.S. v. Eric Adams, it should bother New Yorkers that the outcome of the case will not be determined in a courthouse by a jury examining the evidence and applying the law. Instead, the case will be dropped because doing so suits Trump.
“The mayor may not be guilty, but there is a process. There is a due process. There is something that plays out in a court of law,” ex-prosecutor Jeremy Saland told NY1. “This is not how it’s done, and it should send very real concerns to everybody because now we have a blueprint going forward of how to avoid prosecution under the government over the next four years: Do the president’s bidding and agree with him.”
Pretending that Adams was targeted by the Biden administration for political reasons supports Trump’s claim that his own criminal conviction (remember, our president is a convicted felon) was also improper.
The memo itself combines brazen falsehoods with sly power plays. The main rationale for dropping the prosecution of Adams, the claim that he was targeted for speaking out against the migrant policy of the Biden administration, never made sense. Federal investigators began looking into Adams’s shady fundraising practices in 2021, months before he was sworn into office and a year before the first migrants arrived at the Port Authority bus terminal. The indictment itself cites multiple instances, dating back more than decade, of questions raised about who, exactly, was paying for then–Borough President Adams to travel to China, Israel, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and other international destinations for purposes only marginally related to his actual job. Prosecutors say Adams systematically violated the law by concealing the origin and value of more than $100,000 in gifts and upgrades.
Claims of political bias are especially silly when you consider that the lead prosecutor in the case, Hagan Scotten, is an Army veteran who served in Iraq and previously clerked for ultraconservative judge Brett Kavanaugh, who is now part of the right-leaning majority of the U.S. Supreme Court. He is hardly the kind of person who would violate his oath and risk his job and reputation to carry political water for Biden and the Democrats.
The memo’s claim that Adams’s indictment “improperly interfered with Mayor Adams’ campaign in the 2025 mayoral election” is nonsense. Adams was arrested nine months before the June primary — well outside the Justice Department’s guidelines, which call for prosecutors to avoid new charges within 60 days of an election.
Compare the current “too close to the election” claim with how things were handled in August of 2018, during the first Trump administration. Back then, a line prosecutor — Damian Williams, later the U.S. Attorney who brought the charges against Adams — led the Southern District’s prosecution of then-Congressman Christopher Collins, a Trump-supporting Republican from western New York, who was indicted for insider trading and related charges. The Trump Department of Justice signed off on the prosecution, which was launched 90 days before Election Day. Collins got reelected to Congress and resigned the following year before pleading guilty and beginning a 26-month prison sentence, which Trump later cut short by giving Collins a pardon shortly before Christmas in 2020.
The memo’s directive for the Adams case to be dismissed without prejudice, with an investigation to resume, if at all, after this year’s election, is subtly but breathtakingly cynical. Holding out the remote possibility of reviving the case gives prosecutors in the Southern District an excuse to stay in the office or resign quietly rather than publicly decry the political interference from Washington.
The move also puts Adams on a short leash: He still could be hit with similar or additional charges if team Trump decides to send another memo to New York prosecutors. Expect more of the mayor’s feverish, embarrassing efforts to curry favor with President Trump by never publicly voicing any kind of criticism of the White House.
Leading New York Democrats have lost no time in bashing Adams over Trump’s rescue. “Mayor Adams adopted a strategy of selling out marginalized New Yorkers and our city’s values to avoid personal and legal accountability. Well, it worked. I hope it was worth it,” said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams in a statement. “This is obscene and obvious — the White House doesn’t want to lose their deputy in New York City.”
Political insiders say Adams could end up skipping the Democratic primary, in which the polls show him lagging, and instead run as a Republican in November. To get there, he’ll need to get past his 2021 Republican rival, Curtis Sliwa, who is itching for a return match and will likely fight for the party’s nomination.
“Today’s decision by the Justice Department is an insult to the intelligence of the people of this great city,” Sliwa said on social media. “Mayor Adams will still soon face the judgment of a jury of his peers this fall. There will be attempts between now and then to make you forget what occurred- his corruption, his incompetence. Don’t let anyone tell you it didn’t happen and gaslight you. We know the truth.”
The mainstream view of the situation, voiced by Saland, is a bipartisan one. “Everyone has a right, and there’s a belief in their innocence until and unless proven guilty, but there is a process,” he said. “Mayor Adams may very well be innocent and not guilty, but this was not the way to get there, and it’s really, truly disgusting and should upset anybody, whether you’re in a courthouse or outside doing something else.”
