NYC Mayor Eric Adams told feds his case blocked him from helping Trump immigration crackdown, court docs say

Josephine Stratman, New York Daily News on Feb 19, 2025

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NEW YORK — Amid growing outrage over the Department of Justice’s plan to dismiss Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption case, the mayor and his lawyers have insisted there was no quid pro quo agreement with the Trump administration.

But in a letter released Tuesday, Adams’ lawyer laid out in great detail the different ways the indictment hanging over Adams’ head made it harder for him to assist with the Donald Trump’s hardline immigration efforts.

“As his trial grows near, it will be untenable for the Mayor to be the ever-present partner that [the Department of Homeland Security] needs to make New York City as safe as possible,” Alex Spiro wrote in the Feb. 3 letter.

“It will be untenable for him to stay on top of city agencies and officials to ensure that his agenda on issues like immigration is being respected. And it will be untenable for him to unify the city around a much-needed rollback of certain sanctuary city policies.”

The letter, made public on Tuesday, provides a look into the unprecedented talks between Trump’s Department of Justice and the mayor’s legal team as Adams pushed for his case to be dismissed. That process hits a critical step Wednesday afternoon in federal court as a judge has demanded the government explain its position in a court hearing.

The growing criticism of Adams has focused on the question of whether the deal commits him to get in line with the Trump White House, with the threat of the indictment being brought back still hanging over his head.

In the letter — while there is no commitment to take any particular action — Spiro made it clear that the indictment had impeded Adams from taking certain steps to take action on immigration policies aligned with the priorities of the Trump administration.

With the indictment lifted, Spiro wrote, Adams could more easily prevent the city’s law department from litigating challenges to immigration enforcement, re-open an ICE office on Rikers Island, lend NYPD officers for federal immigration enforcement and block city employees from publicly criticizing the Trump administration’s actions.

Spiro also argued that Adams’ security clearance, jeopardized by the charges, impaired the mayor’s ability, as he would not be able to be briefed on some national security matters. Spiro said this could be “increasingly problematic” as Trump tried to ramp up mass deportations.

The mayor pleaded not guilty to soliciting and accepting bribes and illegal straw donations to his campaign in exchange for carrying out favors for the government of Turkey in a five-count federal indictment in September.

Spiro characterized the case as an “unwanted civil war with the federal government” that would occupy “75% of [Adams’] waking hours” in the correspondence, a follow-up to a Jan. 31 meeting between the DOJ officials, Manhattan federal prosecutors and Adams’ team.

Adams has acted on some of those items. Last week, he told city employees to avoid publicly disparaging Trump. He also promised to issue an executive order allowing ICE on Rikers.

There has been massive fallout from the DOJ memo: Four of the mayor’s top deputy submitted their resignations on Monday, with two of them citing immigration as a key reason they have to leave the administration.

Calls for the mayor to resign have intensified, and Gov. Kathy Hochul convened a series of meetings Tuesday to discuss the mayor’s fate, including whether she should use her powers to remove him.

Danielle Sassoon, Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, resigned in refusal to carry out the Justice Department’s directive to file the dismissal. In her resignation letter, she wrote the mayor agreed to a quid pro quo with the Trump administration: In exchange for for cooperation in immigration enforcement, Adams would receive leniency in his criminal case.

Spiro has vehemently denied any quid pro quo agreement.

Spiro also claimed the indictment increases the odds of Adams being forcibly removed from office and replaced by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — a progressive politician much less friendly to Trump’s priorities.

“Both scenarios are real threats that grow by the day,” Spiro said of the two official processes through which Adams could be given the boot — either through the governor or a special “inability committee.”

“As Mayor Adams continues to help with DHS’ ramping enforcement operations, the risk that his political opponents—and in particular, the City Council—will try to remove him from power will only increase. Governor Hochul also could conclude that, at a certain point, the Mayor can no longer devote the attention that his position requires and accordingly take steps to remove him.”

Talks of forcing Adams out of office have, in fact, intensified since the DOJ order became public.