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A New York Judge has dismissed the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams with prejudice — meaning the government will not be able to resubmit charges against the embattled mayor who allied himself with the Trump administration following his indictment last year.
On Wednesday, Manhattan Federal District Court Judge Dale E. Ho granted the Department of Justice’s request to have the case against Adams dismissed, but reprimanded the Trump administration’s attempt to leave the door open to revive the case against the mayor in the future.
“Everything here smacks of a bargain: Dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions,” Ho wrote in his ruling. “Dismissing the case without prejudice would create the unavoidable perception that the Mayor’s freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration, and that he might be more beholden to the demands of the federal government than to the wishes of his own constituents.”
Ho also made a point to bash the government assertions that the case against Adams had been little more than a politically motivated prosecution — by using their own words against them. “The record before the Court indicates that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York prosecutors who worked on this case followed all appropriate Justice Department guidelines. There is no evidence-zero-that they had any improper motives.”
“Indeed, [the] DOJ’s memorandum directing dismissal of this case took care to note that it did not ‘call[] into question the integrity and efforts of the line prosecutors responsible for the case,’ or the efforts of the U.S. Attorney leading the office at the time of the memorandum,” Ho wrote.
Last year, Adams was indicted on five federal counts — bribery, conspiracy, fraud, and two counts of soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. The charges came after a lenghty investigation of the Mayor’s office that saw several prominent members of his administration caught in its net.
Virtually the moment he was charged, Adams began making blatant overtures to the Trump administration, essentially prostrating himself before the incoming president in the hopes of receiving some sort of reprieve. As previously reported by Rolling Stone, the groveling was so egregious that some in Trump’s administration mocked Adams as “thirsty” for a pardon.
In February, during a joint Fox News interview with Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, Adams was asked about allegations that he had “offered to help with the migration problem in the immigration agenda in exchange for the case being dropped.”
“That’s quid-pro-quo,” Adams replied. “That’s a crime.”
Homan immediately undermined the mayor, telling Fox News that “If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City, and we won’t be sitting on a couch. … I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’”
Rolling Stone reported in February that lawyers for Adams sent a letter to the Justice Department lamenting that “as his trial grows near, it will be untenable for the mayor to be the ever-present partner that [the Department of Homeland Security] needs to make New York City as safe as possible.” The letter, written to Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, advocated strongly in favor of dismissing the charges.
Weeks later, U.S. Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon resigned from her position after being ordered by Bove to drop the case.
The case is now dead, and the Trump administration has once again demonstrated that it’s willing to steamroll Lady Justice if it means getting a political leg up. Instead of granting Trump the ability to hold an indictment over Adams head in order to force the implementation of policies unpopular with New Yorkers, Judge Ho instead gave Adams the get-out-of-jail card he was looking for. It’s no victory.
