WASHINGTON — The Biden administration came out Friday to deny whispers that it disinvited Mayor Eric Adams from a migrant crisis summit after getting tipped off about a Thursday morning FBI raid on one of his campaign fundraisers.
Adams has had an increasingly frosty relationship with President Biden over the impact of record-breaking illegal immigration on city services — but the president’s team claims it neither snubbed Hizzoner nor tried to duck an optics nightmare by yanking him from the guest list.
“This rumor is false,” a White House official told The Post on Friday. “Mayor Adams canceled his participation in the meeting yesterday.”
Adams, who once called himself the “Biden of Brooklyn” before clashing with the 80-year-old president over the border breakdown, posted a video of himself aboard a plane to DC on Thursday morning before he abruptly returned to New York.
The FBI timed its raid on the Brooklyn home of 25-year-old Brianna Suggs to coincide with Adams’ trip to Washington, law enforcement sources told The Post.
The raid sought evidence of Adams aides colluding with the Turkish government and Brooklyn construction company KSK Construction Group to move foreign cash into his 2021 mayoral campaign coffers through straw donors.
It was not immediately clear why the Ankara government would seek to boost Adams’ City Hall candidacy.
Suggs’ firm earned more than $150,000 from the mayor’s campaign.
The White House scheduled the meeting after Adams and four other big-city Democratic mayors signed an Oct. 28 letter demanding $5 billion to cope with an influx in migrants amid record-breaking US-Mexico border crossings.
Biden asked Congress last month to provide a much smaller amount, $1.4 billion, for state and local governments.
“To address this crisis without further delay, we are requesting an urgent meeting with you to directly discuss ways we can work with your administration to avoid large numbers of additional asylum seekers being brought to our cities with little to no coordination, support, or resources,” the mayors wrote.
White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and senior adviser Tom Perez met with Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston without Adams. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner also signed the letter to Biden, but did not attend.
Biden himself did not meet with the mayors, despite their request.
The president similarly gave the cold shoulder to Gov. Kathy Hochul when she visited the West Wing on Aug. 30, after criticizing his management of the border crisis.