The Justice Department told federal prosecutors in Manhattan to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, saying his indictment was handed down too close to the 2025 Democratic mayoral primary and limited his ability to cooperate with President Trump’s immigration crackdown. Adams, a Democrat running for re-election, had made repeated overtures to Trump. The mayor met with Trump near his Mar-a-Lago estate last month in an unusual display of outreach. He attended Trump’s inauguration and said he would not publicly criticize the president, reports the New York Times. The request to drop the charges raises questions about the administration of justice under Trump and the independence of federal prosecutors.
The Justice Department’s acting No. 2 official, Emil Bove, ordered the government to restore Adams’s security clearance, and accused the former Manhattan federal prosecutor who charged Mr. Adams of having done so for political reasons. Bove wrote that the department dropped the charges because the case had been inappropriately timed and not because of questions about the merits of the case or about the mayor’s guilt or innocence. Bove, a former prosecutor in the same office that is prosecuting the mayor, said there was to be “no further targeting of Mayor Adams or additional investigative steps” until after the November mayoral election, when the case would be re-evaluated. A defense lawyer for Adams, Alex Spiro, celebrated the dropping of federal corruption charges against the mayor, saying that the government’s case had relied on “fanfare and sensational claims” but little evidence. Prosecutors had detailed luxury travel arrangements worth more than $100,000 — to India, France, China, Ghana and elsewhere — they said Adams had accepted, primarily from Turkish Airlines, in exchange for taking official action.