“My fellow New Yorkers, today finally marks the end of this chapter,” Mayor Adams said on the steps of Gracie Mansion, after Judge Dale E. Ho dismissed the federal corruption case against him on Wednesday morning. The dismissal came with prejudice, meaning that it cannot be brought back in the future – a detail which was of some contention, as Trump’s Department of Justice had initially sought a dismissal without prejudice, which left many with the impression that Adams would be operating under threat of charges against him being brought back if he did not make good on the Trump administration’s priorities. Several federal prosecutors resigned rather than carry out the DOJ’s order to dismiss the charges, before acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove filed the motion.
Adams attacked the merits of the federal indictment that had been brought against him last September, repeating his claim that it was a “baseless case that should have never been brought in the first place,” and apologizing to New Yorkers for having to witness the “lies spread through false leaks and splashed across sensational headlines.” As he had done in February when the DOJ had first announced its intention to drop the charges against him, Adams credited divine intervention for the turn of events, stating that “Jesus stepped in, and he uses who he uses.”
Federal authorities had alleged malfeasance stretching back to 2014, declaring in the now-moot charges against the New York City mayor that “for nearly a decade, Adams sought and accepted improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him,” and that he “took these contributions even though he knew they were illegal.” Along the way, federal prosecutors had told the court repeatedly that they intended to add additional charges in a superseding indictment, claiming that their sprawling investigation into top City Hall officials and the mayor was uncovering more offenses.
Judge Ho emphasized that his decision was made on technical grounds, stating that “neither the dismissal of the Indictment, nor the length of this Opinion, should be understood as any kind of statement about the merits of the allegations against the Mayor in the Indictment.” He rejected, as some had suggested, that he could appoint an independent prosecutor on the case, and called the idea that he could deny the government’s motion to dismiss “futile at best,” as the DOJ could simply refuse to carry the case forward after his ruling regardless.
At some points, Ho even reflected the broadly held concerns that Adams had reached some kind of arrangement with prosecutors to drop the charges in exchange for policy favorable to the Trump administration, as Bove specifically mentioned Adams’ role on immigration policy in his motion to dismiss. “Everything here smacks of a bargain,” Ho wrote, “dismissal of the Indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions.”
Adams returned to his claim that he was the victim of a political prosecution from the Biden administration, holding up the book “Government Gangsters” by Kash Patel, a former U.S. attorney and conspiracy theorist who was appointed by President Trump to run the FBI. “I’m going to encourage every New Yorker to read it,” the mayor said, “and understand how we can never allow this to happen to another innocent American.” In his decision, Judge Ho dismissed Adams’ claim that the charges against him were politically motivated, asserting that they were “not just thin, but pretextual.”
Speculation has also mounted over whether Adams will participate in the June 24th Democratic primary, or if he’ll run as an independent. Even though the deadline for petitioning to run in that race is this Thursday, Adams continued to play coy with the matter when asked on Wednesday: “I’m running for re-election, and you know what? I’m going to win.”
