New York City Mayor Eric Adams during an interview with Fox News on Friday denied striking a deal with the Trump administration to have criminal corruption charges against him dropped in exchange for an immigration crackdown in the city. The claim is a little hard to believe considering Adams was seated next to Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, who threatened in the same interview to crawl “up his butt” if Adams didn’t keep his end of the “agreement we came to.”
On Thursday, U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, whom the Trump administration appointed just weeks ago, resigned from her position after being ordered by ccting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to drop the charges against Adams — who was charged in September with crimes related to bribery and wire fraud. Sassoon wrote a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi accusing Adams and the Trump administration of entering into a quid-pro-quo arrangement that would grant the mayor reprieve from “an indictment returned by a duly constituted grand jury for reasons having nothing to do with the strength of the case.”
Adams was asked by the hosts of Fox & Friends on Friday about Sassoon’s allegation that the mayor had “offered to help with the migration problem in the immigration agenda in exchange for the case being dropped.”
The mayor in turn asked the hosts — and viewers — to “imagine” his attorney going to the Trump administration and “saying that the only way Mayor Adams is going to assist in immigration — which I was calling for since 2022 — is if you drop the charges.”
“That’s quid-pro-quo,” Adams added. “That’s a crime. It took her three weeks to report, in front of her, a criminal action? Come on, this is silly.”
What the mayor deemed silliness was all but confirmed by Homan, his fellow guest on the segment. “If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City, and we won’t be sitting on a couch.” Homan said. “I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’” Editor’s picks The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time
Following Adams’ indictment, the mayor made transparent overtures to the Trump administration in an apparent ploy to get out of the criminal charges against him. As previously reported by Rolling Stone, Adams groveling before the altar of MAGA was so blatant that those in Trump’s administration referred to him as “thirsty” for a pardon. In her letter, Sassoon made clear that the Department of Justice had provided no legal or ethical bases for the dismissal of the case.
“Mr. Bove proposes dismissing the charges against Adams in return for his assistance
in enforcing the federal immigration laws, analogizing to the prisoner exchange in which the United States freed notorious Russian arms dealer Victor Bout in return for an American prisoner in Russia. Such an exchange with Adams violates commonsense beliefs in the equal administration of justice,” she wrote. “But Adams has argued in substance and Mr. Bove appears prepared to concede that Adams should receive leniency for federal crimes solely because he occupies an important public position and can use that position to assist in the Administration’s policy priorities.”
Sassoon has since resigned from her position, along with several other federal prosecutors in New York and Washington, D.C.
In a scathing resignation letter to Bove, Assistant U.S. for the Attorney for the Southern District of New York Hagan Scotten wrote that “no system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.” Related Content YNW Melly’s Trials Highlight Florida’s Unconstitutional Death Penalty Law FAA Officials Ordered Staff to Find Funding for Elon Musk’s Starlink 'SNL' Weekend Update Tackles Trump-Zelensky Meeting, Musk's Demands of Federal Workers 'SNL' Cold Open: Mike Myers' Elon Musk Clumsily Waves Chainsaw Around Trump's Head
“If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me,” he added.
On Friday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) issued a statement demanding that Bondi and the DOJ “put an immediate halt to this illegal and unconscionable intimidation campaign.”
“Your Department of Justice has been caught engaging in a corrupt deal with Mayor Adams and now attempting to cover it up. It’s time to do your job and stop this outrageous sabotage of justice in the interests of naked political corruption,” the congressman wrote.
For now, it appears as if the mayor of the overwhelmingly Democratic city is essentially being held hostage by the Trump administration — which doesn’t seem to care if everyone knows it.
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