On Thursday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that he would run for re-election, only this time, he’ll do it as an independent.
“There isn’t a liberal way or conservative way to fix New York, but there is a right way and a wrong way,” Adams said in a video on Twitter. “Though I am still a Democrat, I am announcing that I will forgo the Democratic primary for mayor and appeal directly to all New Yorkers as an independent candidate in the general election.” I wonder how many strategists it took to come up with that convenient spin…
The announcement arrived one day after the Trump administration’s Department of Justice formally dropped bribery and wire fraud charges against Adams. In an interview with Politico, Adams blamed the case for delaying his re-election campaign, referring to it as “handcuffs” and himself as a restrained “racehorse.”
“I have been this racehorse that has been held back,” he told the publication of the stalled election announcement. “This is so unnatural for me.”
Being an independent, however, is suddenly not so unnatural for the politician who has long claimed to be a Democrat in a largely Democratic city. The one-time self-purported “Biden of Brooklyn” and the “face of the new Democratic Party” mostly aligned with the Biden administration, and, after winning the Democratic nomination in 2021, even met with the former president to discuss combating gun violence. One year later, Adams met with Biden again to chat about supporting law enforcement. At the time, they seemed in lockstep with one another.
A shift seemed to occur in 2023, however, when Adams became critical of Biden’s handling of the supposed “migrant crisis” in NYC. “There’s no leadership here,” Adams told a group of Biden aides in October 2023, further demanding a crackdown. Then, in the final months of Biden’s term, Adams was charged with wire fraud, bribery, and solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national, according to a lengthy 57-page federal indictment. For close to a decade, Adams allegedly engaged in bribery, sought out and accepted illegal contributions from foreign sources and corporations, and attempted to keep it all as hidden as he once did his place of residence, prosecutors from the Southern District of New York alleged in the filing. The charges, Adams suggested at the time, were somehow retaliation from the Biden administration.
“I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target,” Adams said in a video response to the indictment. “And a target I became.”
Ever since, Adams has become chummy with President Trump, who has argued that his own criminal charges against him were politicized. In December, Trump said he would consider pardoning the mayor. By February, following his attendance at Trump’s inauguration and a handful of meetings with the president, the Department of Justice ordered an end to Adams’ corruption case. Imagine that!
Ultimately, it was left to Judge Dale Ho, who oversaw Adams’ case, to approve the dismissal, which occurred on Wednesday. Despite Judge Ho’s decision, he conceded that “everything here smacks of a bargain, dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions.”
“As I’ve said all along, this case should have never been brought and I did nothing wrong,” Adams boasted to reporters outside Gracie Mansion. “I am now happy that our city can finally close the book and focus solely on the future of our great city. I want to thank New Yorkers who stood by my side, who prayed for me, who supported me from day one and stuck with me while we focused on the work at hand.”
Meanwhile, Adams’ critics—and fellow mayoral candidates—have voiced their outrage and even suggested a quid pro quo situation. Mayoral candidate Michael Blake called the decision “absolutely disgusting,” while Zohran Mamdani referred to it as a “slimy deal.”
“Eric Adams has sold out New Yorkers and put himself above the public at every chance he could,” Mamdani said. “Even the judge in the case agrees: this slimy deal reeks of a quid pro quo with the Trump administration. In exchange for his freedom, Adams has looked the other way while the federal government detains and disappears New Yorkers, steals money from our city, and wages war on working people.”
What can I say? It’s super comforting that the mayoral race now includes both a sex pest and an “independent” fraud who will undoubtedly pander to Trump’s regime. Greatest city in the world, etc., etc.
