Following Legal Reprieve, Adams Hit On All Sides Over Trump Alliance

NEW YORK — Rivals of Mayor Eric Adams — and even some former allies — lambasted him Tuesday, saying his legal relief would end up hurting New Yorkers.

“Eric Adams sold you out. He sold you out! And what’s remarkable is we don’t even know the price,” state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, who’s running for mayor, said in a press conference Tuesday morning.

Myrie demanded the federal judge overseeing Adams’ corruption case reject the Department of Justice’s Monday directive to dismiss it and said the judge should appoint a special prosecutor to carry it on.

The move to dismiss the case without prejudice, which would allow prosecutors to bring the same charges again, “is not a reprieve for Mr. Adams,” Myrie wrote in a letter to Judge Dale Ho. “It is a gun to the head of the legitimate democratic governance of the City of New York. The DOJ’s message is clear: assent to President Donald Trump or face renewed criminal charges.”

Other politicians challenging Adams in the June Democratic primary shared Myrie’s criticisms.

City Comptroller Brad Lander called the conduct in Adams’ case “rank corruption” — but said he’d rather see the case dropped without conditions. Instead, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove issued a memo saying Manhattan prosecutors should review the case after Election Day.

“Every single day, (Adams) is going to be looking over his shoulder before he makes decisions about whether to join a lawsuit against the freezing of federal funding,” Lander said. “That's not a distraction, it's a danger. … It puts the mayor on a tether to Donald Trump every time he harms or threatens New York City.”

Bove’s memo zeroed in on Adams’ cooperation with immigration enforcement as justification for dismissing the case. Trump’s Department of Justice, he wrote, was “particularly concerned about the impact of the prosecution on Mayor Eric Adams’ ability to support critical, ongoing federal efforts ‘to protect the American people from the disastrous effects of unlawful mass migration and resettlement.”

It wasn’t clear what level of “support” the Trump administration is seeking, but the memo quotes a Trump executive order on border security ordering, in part, the pursuit of criminal charges for violations of immigration law, as well as the detention of people suspected of violating immigration law until they can be deported.

Adams has said he opposes such mass deportation policies, which could put hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers in danger of criminalization and detention. But he will likely be powerless to stop the Trump administration, and if he appears complacent his opponents will pounce.

The mayor asserts federal prosecutors indicted him on corruption charges as retribution for his criticism of the Biden White House’s border policies that spurred an influx of migrants into the city. For now, he says he agrees with Trump’s push to target violent criminals, but a more expansive deportation policy presents a political problem for Adams.

The possibility of ramped up immigration enforcement worried Jennifer Jones Austin, who supports groups serving migrants as the CEO of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies.

“Regardless of what the current city and state laws provide for, New York City now under Mayor Adams and President Trump is for all intents and purposes no longer a sanctuary city,” she said in an interview.

Austin works closely with Al Sharpton, who called Bove’s memo “political blackmail.”

“If the Mayor were to disagree with the President, does that mean they have the right to call a trial on him at any time? It certainly sounds like President Trump is holding the Mayor hostage,” Sharpton said in a statement.

Sharpton previously defended the embattled mayor, but suggested he may not stick by him as he seeks reelection. He’s convening top Black elected officials in the coming days to discuss a course of action, as POLITICO first reported.

Other one-time allies of the mayor have turned on him.

City Council Member Shaun Abreu endorsed Adams in 2021 alongside his political mentor, Rep. Adriano Espaillat, who was once an undocumented immigrant. Four years later, Abreu has called on the mayor to resign.

“The only thing worse for our city than Trump giving the mayor a get-out-of-jail-free card is the unspoken deal that comes with it,” Abreu posted on X. “Our mayor shouldn’t be beholden to anyone but the voters.”

Adams expressed no concerns with the Trump administration’s order in a video address Tuesday that didn’t acknowledge the president's role in his fortune turning.

“I thank the Justice Department for its honesty,” Adams said. “Now you can put this cruel episode behind us and focus entirely on the future of our city.”

And his spokesperson, Kayla Mamelak Altus, rejected that Adams would be coerced into supporting Trump’s agenda for the “largest deportation effort in the history of our country.”

“Under Mayor Adams’ leadership, New York City has become a national model for what handling a humanitarian crisis humanely should look like,” she said, touting his record of sheltering more than 230,000 migrants over the last three years.

The mayor has focused on points of agreement with Trump, Mamelak Altus added, such as “going after the violent offenders who are wreaking havoc on our streets and ensuring they leave our city after being convicted of a crime and serving a jail sentence.”

Adams’ commitment to New York’s sanctuary city policies may be tested this week, when Trump border czar Tom Homan meets with Adams Thursday and seeks the city’s cooperation in efforts to deport alleged gang members.

“I’m coming up there Thursday to meet with the mayor,” Homan said in a radio interview. “Either he comes to the table or we go around him, but he promised he's all in on arresting public safety threats are here illegally.”

He said Attorney General Pam Bondi “is already taking sanctuary cities to court. She’s pulling federal funding from them.”

“Let’s hope the sanctuary cities open their eyes and help us remove public safety threats from their communities,” he added.

Mamelak Altus declined to respond.

Even Gov. Kathy Hochul, one of Adams’ strongest allies, hedged on the subject.

“Do I think he’s compromised? That is speculation, I don’t know, I don’t know whether anyone is compromised in that situation, I truly do not know,” she said at an unrelated press conference Tuesday. "I have to believe that the mayor is going to put the interests of New York City first.”

Nick Reisman and Janaki Chadha contributed to this report.