A top Justice Department official ordered federal prosecutors to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D), who had cozied up with President Trump in recent months as his bribery trial set for April neared.
In a short memo, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said the DOJ reached the decision to dismiss the counts without assessing the strength of the case and indicated that the attorneys who filed the charges did nothing wrong.
However, Bove said the case “improperly interfered” with Adams’ 2025 mayoral campaign and alluded to the Trump administration’s efforts to end “weaponization” in the federal government as a reason to wind down the case.
He also claimed the pending prosecution “unduly restricted” the mayor’s ability to focus on “the illegal immigration and violent crime that has escalated under the policies of the prior Administration.”
Prosecutors said that, starting in 2014, Adams sought and accepted “improper valuable benefits” such as luxury international travel from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official who was seeking to influence him.
By 2018, the mayor “not only accepted but sought” illegal campaign contributions to his 2021 mayoral campaign, in addition to “other things of value” from foreign nationals, according to charging papers.
Adams faces counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national and bribery.
The New York City mayor has raised eyebrows for his apparent relationship with Trump.
He met with Trump days before the president was sworn in and made a last-minute change to his schedule so that he could attend Trump’s inauguration earlier this month. Trump has publicly empathized with Adams. In December, he said he would “look at” a pardon for the mayor.
“I think that he was treated pretty unfairly,” Trump said.
The charges were brought under Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York during the Biden administration. Bove suggested that “recent public actions” by Williams “threatened the integrity of the proceedings, including by increasing prejudicial pretrial publicity that risks impacting potential witnesses and the jury pool,” likely a reference to an opinion piece written after his departure from the office.
Alex Spiro, an attorney for Adams, said there is “good reason” that the Justice Department decided not to move forward with the case. He said there was “no evidence” that the mayor broke any laws, despite “fanfare and sensational claims.”
“As I said from the outset, the mayor is innocent—and he would prevail,” Spiro said. “Today he has.”
The Associated Press contributed.
