Governor Kathy Hochul Declines to Remove Mayor Eric Adams

Mayor Eric Adams used up another of his nine lives Thursday.

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that she would not remove the embattled mayor from office at this time, after Black leaders told her they would not support his ousting.

“I cannot deny the power of the great people of this city from making this decision for themselves,” she said at a 4:30 p.m. press conference. She proposed measures to create a “line of sight” into City Hall to ensure Adams’ decisions are not dictated by the Trump administration.

Hochul had said on Tuesday that she was reconsidering removing the mayor, which she has unilateral power to do, after four of Adams’ deputy mayors announced Monday that they would resign.

Two of those deputy mayors, Maria Torres-Springer and Chauncey Parker, had been hired or promoted on Hochul’s urging, and the mass resignation caused her to openly question the mayor’s ability to run the city.

Hochul proposed two oversight measures and a state law to allow the City Council and public advocate to sue the federal government, rather than rely on the city’s Law Department, which is controlled by the mayor, to do so. She described the measures as “guardrails” necessary because of the leverage President Donald Trump has on Adams.

The timing of the governor’s announcement is a bit of a surprise. She had been expected to wait for federal Judge Dale Ho to rule on a Department of Justice motion to dismiss the indictment against Adams, who was charged in September with corruption.

By getting in front of Ho’s ruling, Hochul could put more pressure on the judge to let the indictment stand, although such a decision would be virtually unprecedented.

However, it is also unprecedented for the Department of Justice to have requested the dismissal of a case that its own prosecutors — in this case at the Southern District of New York — want to pursue.

At least seven SDNY prosecutors, including acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon and the lead prosecutor on the case, Hagan Scotten, resigned rather than move to dismiss the case as the Trump administration had ordered. The 30 prosecutors on the anti-corruption team of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., reportedly considered resigning rather than file the motion, but one ultimately agreed to do it.

The motion calls for dismissal of the case without prejudice, meaning it could be restored after the November election, in which Adams is seeking another term. The arrangement has prompted criticism that Adams has become a “hostage” of Trump and has put saving his own skin ahead of New York’s welfare.

But supporters of Trump, as well as New Yorkers who prefer Adams to any of the declared candidates in the mayoral race, have not echoed those concerns. They tend to favor Trump’s policing and immigration enforcement policies, which are keeping Adams in office. And the real estate industry has been appreciative of Adams’ pro-housing agenda.

The first-term mayor had been scheduled for trial in April for allegedly trading political favors for first-class airline tickets and luxury hotel stays overseas, as well as encouraging straw-donor schemes that laundered illegal foreign donations to his 2021 campaign and triggered matching public funds.

Adams claimed his indictment was an act of retribution by the Biden administration because he had complained about a lack of federal aid to house migrants. Adams’ claim was echoed this month by Chad Mizelle, chief of staff for Trump’s attorney general, Pam Biondi. Mizelle called the case a “politically motivated witch hunt.”

But SDNY — known as the Sovereign District for its historical independence from presidential administrations — began investigating Adams in 2021, a year before the wave of migrants that eventually led to the mayor’s request for federal funding. Sassoon, in resigning, emphasized that the case against Adams was strong and that an obstruction charge was about to be added.

Prosecutors had laid out their case over 57 pages in a five-count indictment that quoted extensively from text messages sent by Adams, his aides and Turkish officials. Adams’ public approval ratings, which were already low, have sunk even further. Andrew Cuomo now leads in early polling for the mayoral race, which the former governor is expected to join in the next few weeks.

Some political observers had suggested that Hochul was not likely to remove Adams because doing so would enhance Cuomo’s chance to become mayor — an uncomfortable scenario for Hochul. The two had a falling out after Cuomo tapped her as his lieutenant governor. Then Hochul became governor when he resigned in a sexual harassment scandal as the state legislature was about to remove him.

Hochul has been critical of the way Cuomo ran the state and especially for his hostility toward Bill de Blasio when he was mayor. She had made a point to be congenial and cooperative with Adams before his indictment, notably working with the mayor on policies favored by the real estate industry.

Kathryn Brenzel contributed reporting.