What The Hell America!

This turn of events quickly changed on February 10, when the acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove announced that the Justice Department would direct federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York to drop the charges against Adams. The communication did not claim the charges should be dropped based on a lack of evidence, but rather that Adams needed to focus on implementing President Trump’s mass deportation program in New York City, a city with 3.1 million foreign born residents. They also stated that the case interfered with Adams’s reelection campaign. In addition, the charges were to be dropped without prejudice, meaning the charges could be refiled in the future (and thus potentially dangled over Adams’s head should he displease the Trump administration for whatever reason).

Following the announcement, Adams immediately acted as if the charges were dropped, even claiming that this proved his innocence. By the end of the week, Adams appeared on Fox and Friends with Homan. In a painful appearance that had the feel of a hostage nervously laughing alongside his kidnapper, Adams stated, “I’m collaborating.”

But the Trump administration’s plans did not work out as expected. On February 11, upon hearing this directive, Manhattan’s interim federal prosecutor Danielle Sassoon quit her prestigious position rather than dismiss the charges against Adams, as she said this would violate her oath as federal prosecutor. The Justice Department then tried to move the case to its own staff. This led to a cascade of additional federal prosecutors who quit their positions rather than follow Bove’s directive, including five DC-based prosecutors: the acting head and three other prosecutors from the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, a unit that oversees all public corruption cases, and the acting head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

These resignations have thrown the Justice Department and federal judiciary into crisis. Days later, a seventh prosecutor resigned, a top prosecutor on the Adams case who issued a public letter of refusal. But the resignations were not over. Within less than a week, four of Adams’s top staff resigned, including his chief deputy mayor and three other deputy mayors, signaling their lack of confidence in the administration.

As the future of the case seemed in disarray, Bove then asked Judge Dale Ho, the federal judge in charge of the Adams case, to dismiss the charges. In response, Ho called Adams, his lawyers, and the Justice Department to justify their position at a hearing on February 19. At this Manhattan hearing, Bove stated that the Trump administration was justified in dropping the charges against Adams, because the prosecution would hurt Mayor Adams’s cooperation with Trump’s immigration agenda. Bove stated that the prosecution “unduly restricted” Adams’s ability to “devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that has escalated under the policies of the prior Administration.” The Trump administration made clear that they considered a political objective more important than the rule of law.

Attorneys for Adams denied that this dismissal was the result of a quid pro quo arrangement with the Trump administration. Following this preliminary hearing, Judge Ho announced his appointment of an independent lawyer to consider the arguments against dropping charges. While Judge Ho did not dismiss the charges, per the Justice Department’s directive, he did indefinitely pause the trial. Facing political pressure to remove Adams, as governors have such powers under the New York City charter, Governor Kathy Hochul declined to remove Adams and instead will work with the legislator to put in oversight measures to serve as “guardrails” to limit the mayor’s powers.

As we await the legal decision around whether Adams’s charges will be dismissed, this Greek tragedy–like turn of events suggests how complementary the Trump and Adams administrations are.

At the very moment Trump is engaging in gross executive overreach to overturn basic democratic institutions, Adams’s belief that he is above the law has triggered a huge crisis of confidence in our systems of justice that one former Department of Justice official called “worse than Watergate.” What started off as a local controversy has spiraled into a crisis of legitimacy for the United States’ judicial system and the fundamental tenets of the rule of law. But in many ways, these seemingly strange bedfellows — an establishment Democrat who rode the reactionary anti–Black Lives Matter, pro-law-and-order wave of 2021 with Donald Trump — now seem like natural allies.

Adams has done serious damage to the living and working conditions for many working New Yorkers. Since the pandemic, rental and housing prices have increased in New York City by over one-third; Adams has done little to fight this, but instead has raised the rent on rent-stabilized tenants — over two million New Yorkers — three times. New York City’s Department of Education has lost over 100,000 students since the pandemic, with a loss that far outpaces other parts of the state. The biggest losses are among black students.

Yet instead of using his executive power and political capital to improve the lives of working-class New Yorkers, Adams instead used the 2024 general elections to push through confusing referendums on the ballot that amounted to a sneak power grab.

Adams’s administration already participated in ethically questionable practices well before his indictment. His administration was plagued with conflicts of interest, concerns around nepotism, and other poor government practices. Adams secretly appointed his brother to a $210,000-a-year police position. Other appointments led to questions about prizing loyalty over qualifications, posting relatives and close friends to high-ranking positions. (Many of these high-level appointments were also indicted for their participation in Adams’s alleged criminal activity and have since resigned.)

Adams’s partner also got a significant raise and promotion within the city’s Department of Education but quietly resigned when her use of luxury travel benefits and failure to show up to work came to light. Complaints against police for abuse of power have gone up under Adams’s tenure, and Adams authorized the New York Police Department’s deranged use of social media to attack their critics, including city council members. During his administration, city workers have filed a record number of conflict of interest waiver applications.

For now, despite this disgrace and controversy, Adams remains committed to running as a Democrat in the upcoming Democratic primary for mayor. His approval rating is at a historic low, and most New Yorkers believed he should resign, according to polls. The field remains very crowded, as many self-professed progressive challengers have declared their candidacies. The most noteworthy potential challenger at this time is Andrew Cuomo, who has not yet announced his campaign but is expected to and currently leads the polls. Cuomo is quick to push a narrative of “competence” as a way to obscure his similarities with Adams: beholden to real estate interests, unethical, corrupt, shady fundraising, austerity pushing, and scornful of institutions of accountability for his actions as an elected official.

Socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani, on the other hand, offers a clear alternative to mainstream politicians and neoliberal Democrats. His commitment to reducing the cost of living for New Yorkers, increasing the minimum wage to $30 by 2030, and his grassroots-funded campaign, with the highest matching funds in the most recent campaign finance filings, present a stark contrast to Adams and Cuomo.

The dynamic campaign that Mamdani has been running since his announcement in October 2024 is paying off. According to a recent Tusk Strategies poll, Zohran is polling second behind Cuomo, with 33 percent of respondents between ages eighteen and thirty-three ranking him as their number one choice. While Cuomo’s supporters assemble, including setting up a SuperPAC, New York City Democratic Socialists of America and Mamdani’s other supporters are moving ahead on their ambitious plan. It’s a campaign driven by a sense of hope that something other than naked corruption and fealty to Trump is possible in New York’s city hall.