Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 194
What Just Happened?
“Gov. Kathy Hochul has begun to examine a long-dormant power that lets governors remove local officials such as New York City mayors, following Thursday’s indictment of Eric Adams,” Politico reports.
“Lawyers in Hochul’s office on Thursday internally discussed the legal and constitutional framework for removing an elected official.”
Said Hochul: “I will be deliberative, I will be thoughtful, but we’re going to come to the right resolution on what to do in this moment.”
Sources told The City that New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) is being charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent for taking actions in his official capacity after receiving donations from foreign sources.
Details on the charges are still unclear, but sources told the New York Times it is part of a larger probe that looked partly into his 2021 campaign for mayor.
Update: The indictment was unsealed.
“FBI agents entered the official residence of New York City Mayor Eric Adams and seized his phone early Thursday morning, hours before an indictment detailing criminal charges against the Democrat was expected to be made public,” the AP reports.
“New York City Mayor Eric Adams faced a wave of calls to resign Wednesday evening following reports that he is expected to face federal charges as soon as Thursday,” NBC News reports.
In a video last night, Adams vowed that he would not step down from his post and will fight the expected corruption charges, decrying them as “entirely false, based on lies.”
“Eric Adams, a retired police captain who was elected as New York City’s 110th mayor nearly three years ago on a promise to rein in crime, has been indicted following a federal corruption investigation,“ the New York Times reports.
“The indictment remained sealed on Wednesday night, and it was unclear what charge or charges Mr. Adams will face. But when they are made public, he will become the first New York City mayor to be criminally charged while in office.”
“The indictment promised to reverberate across the nation’s largest city and beyond, plunging Mr. Adams’s embattled administration further into chaos just months before he is set to face challengers in a hotly contested mayoral primary.”
“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Wednesday said Eric Adams should resign as mayor of New York City, becoming the most prominent Democrat to push for his ouster amid federal corruption investigations involving his administration,” the New York Times reports.
“Schools Chancellor David Banks, who assumed his role as head of the nation’s largest school system in New York City two years ago, is stepping down,” Politico reports.
“Banks, a longtime friend of Mayor Eric Adams who appointed him in December 2021, is resigning as he faces scrutiny over his ties to a federal investigation. The probe is centered around the role his consultant brother Terence played in a potential bribery scheme involving city contracts.”
“Federal prosecutors investigating whether Mayor Eric Adams conspired with the Turkish government to funnel illegal foreign donations into his campaign have recently sought information about interactions with five other countries,“ the New York Times reports.
“The demand for information related to the other countries — Israel, China, Qatar, South Korea and Uzbekistan — was made in expansive grand jury subpoenas issued in July to City Hall, the mayor and his campaign, the people said. The prosecutors’ focus on the other five countries has not been previously reported.”
“The full scope of the inquiry into the mayor is not publicly known, and it remains unclear why investigators were seeking information about the additional countries or whether Mr. Adams has had dealings with them.”
“New York City’s interim police commissioner revealed late Saturday that federal authorities had executed search warrants at his homes the previous day,” the AP reports.
“Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. (D) and his wife, La’Quetta, the city’s superintendent of schools, have been indicted on child endangerment and other charges for allegedly beating their teenage daughter on numerous occasions,” the AP reports.
“Two high-ranking New York Fire Department chiefs were arrested early Monday and accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to speed up the fire-safety approval process for building projects across the city,” the New York Times reports.
“There is no indication that the case is related to any of the four separate federal corruption investigations swirling around Mayor Eric Adams, his campaign and some of his most senior aides. The inquiry focused on the mayor is being conducted by the same agencies that investigated the chiefs.”
“Springfield city officials announced the cancellation of an annual celebration of diversity, arts and culture due to safety concerns, after numerous threats were received by city, county and school facilities,” the Springfield News-Sun reports.
“Those threats came after Springfield landed in the national spotlight over its Haitian immigration tensions, especially in the wake of baseless claims agains immigrants going viral on social media and being shared by top Republican politicians including former President Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. and vice presidential candidate JD Vance.”
“New York City Mayor Eric Adams lost two key allies within a span of days as authorities probe his inner circle, pressuring an administration that’s already struggling under record-low poll numbers a year before he seeks reelection,” Bloomberg reports.
“The mayor of the Ohio city at the center of a firestorm over immigration says that his town needs help — not the hate that has been stirred by politicians and extremists,” the New York Times reports.
Said Mayor Rob Rue (R): “We are hurting.”
He added: “It’s frustrating when national politicians, on the national stage, mischaracterize what is actually going on and misrepresent our community.”
New York City Police Commissioner Edward Caban is stepping down, multiple sources told ABC News.
“Federal agents are investigating a possible bribery scheme involving New York City contracts and a consulting firm run by the brother of two top officials in the administration of Mayor Eric Adams,” the New York Times reports.
“Prosecutors last week seized the phones of the two officials — the schools chancellor and the deputy mayor for public safety — and the consultant because they believed the devices might contain evidence of bribery and other crimes.”
“When the federal authorities last week seized the phones of top City Hall officials in New York, it was another stunning public move by investigators who had already taken Mayor Eric Adams’s devices, searched his aides’ homes and issued subpoenas to members of the mayor’s staff,” the New York Times reports.
“The intensity — and sheer volume — of the federal scrutiny has raised urgent questions about the scope of what federal agents are seeking and how much longer they intend to seek it, especially with the Democratic mayoral primary approaching next year.”
New York Police Commissioner Edward Caban is expected to resign his post in the coming days, following news of a federal investigation involving possible corruption, Politico reports.
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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