Biden’s Pardon Is Bolstering Eric Adams’ Legal Defense

NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams has claimed that his federal indictment was retaliation for criticizing President Joe Biden’s handling of immigration — a political assertion short on evidence.

Now, Biden himself has given Adams evidence to point to. Literally.

Asked at a press conference Tuesday for his reaction to Biden pardoning his son Hunter, Adams pulled a copy of The New York Times out from his lectern and read aloud from a front page story.

“President Biden and President-elect Donald Trump now agree on one thing: the Biden Justice Department has been politicized,” Adams read.

“Does that sound familiar? I rest my case,” he added with a laugh.

The line echoed Adams’ own argument from a video he released in September, when federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted him on five criminal counts, alleging he accepted bribes from Turkish interests in exchange for official favors. The mayor pleaded not guilty and his attorney is pushing for an earlier trial date, so as not to interfere with his reelection campaign.

“I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target,” he said in the video. “And a target I became.”

Adams’ comment on the Times’ story Tuesday also echoed what he had told The Wall Street Journal in a column published Wednesday, when asked if he thought the indictment was “payback for his criticism of the party line on migrants.”

“Yes, I do,” Adams responded. “People were not happy with me. It doesn’t have to be the president, because there are a lot of other people unhappy that I fought for this city.”

The mayor is a moderate Democrat who at times seems more comfortable aligning with Republicans than left-of-center politicians in his own party. His political proclivities have been underscored by anger toward Biden and a kinship with Trump over a shared narrative of persecution from the political elites.

Adams has rarely shown his cards so clearly as he did with the Journal. Over the past 13 months since the federal investigation became public, Adams has typically been measured in his statements. He has let surrogates — including Trump, as of late — make the politicized prosecution argument for him.

But not fighting back is against the mayor’s nature.

“In all my life, I’ve never had to have the level of discipline that I have right now. Nothing is more harmful and hurtful than to have leaks come out. The assault on your character. And you have to sit back,” because his lawyers have told him not to engage.

Adams then compared himself to the iconic 1968 photo of Muhammad Ali posing in Esquire as Saint Sebastian punctured with arrows.

“I believe in fighting for my rights. And this is the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life,” he said. “The onslaught of this. And I have to remain silent.”

It was an artful dodge. The mayor was responding to a question about how he could say the indictment came in response to criticizing the Biden administration when prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said that they had opened the investigation in 2021 — two years before Adams’ attacked the White House.

But Adams found a way to respond, pulling out the Times again, and reading the sentence again.

“President Biden and President-elect Donald Trump now agree on one thing: the Biden Justice Department has been politicized,” he said. “Now you know if this is in the New York Times, it has to be true,” he added with a laugh.

It wasn’t the only time on Tuesday that Adams, a Democrat, embraced Trump’s talking points. The Democratic mayor has played nice with the Republican president-elect, and praised him for responding to Americans’ concerns about immigration.

Adams also talked about how the price of his Bitcoin has risen, praised Elon Musk’s plan for government efficiency and decried “cancel culture” for making Democrats afraid to say they want to deport immigrants without legal status who commit crimes.

“Well cancel me,” Adams said. “because I’m going to protect the people of the city.”