New York Mayor Eric Adams says the corruption cases brought against him are political retribution — and he and President-elect Donald Trump have shared a bond over that.
The Democratic mayor told the Wall Street Journal in a profile interview that he had “done no wrong” and that “justice will be done.”
A five-count indictment against Mr. Adams unsealed in late September accuses him of illegally taking foreign money in a pay-for-play scheme with the Turkish government.
The indictment was handed down not long after Mr. Adams went off the Democratic reservation on immigration and crime, saying the city was being burdened with the costs of the Biden administration’s lax approach to border security.
Asked by the Journal whether he thinks the indictment is payback, he replied, “Yes, I do.”
“People were not happy with me. It doesn’t have to be the president, because there are a lot of other people unhappy that I fought for this city,” he said.
According to the Journal profile, Mr. Adams has spoken with Mr. Trump three times since the November election and met physically at least twice in recent weeks — at the Al Smith Dinner before the vote and a recent UFC fight card at Madison Square Garden after.
The parallels of their dealings with prosecutors were not lost on Mr. Trump in his Al Smith speech.
The Republican said he knew “what it’s like to be persecuted” by the Justice Department. “We were persecuted, Eric. I was persecuted, and so were you.”
The Journal noted that Mr. Adams himself avoided using any form of the word “persecuted” in the interview, but did say he’s being “unfairly treated.”
More than two dozen people in Mr. Adams’ circle have been caught up in five separate federal investigations to varying degrees — charged, searched, questioned under uncertain intent, etc. — according to a New York Times tracker of the Adams team.
In the profile, the Journal noted that Mr. Adams is calling on Democrats to work with the incoming Republican administration, including on immigration and the deportation of criminals. He also blamed his party’s electoral loss partly on his party listening to far-left ideologues, especially on issues such as transgenderism and on overheated rhetoric.
“We’re talking at people, and not to people or with people. We’ve stopped listening to working-class people.” Instead, the party “listened to the ideologues, calling Donald Trump ‘Hitler,’” he said.
The newspaper raised the possibility that Mr. Adams may be saying this and getting close to Mr. Trump in a bid to curry favor with the future president and get the Justice Department off him.
He laughed and shook his head at that question, the Journal said.
“I have been saying this constantly, that we have to stop yelling at each other.” He was “searching for common denominators with Republicans well before any accusations against me,” Mr. Adams maintained.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.