Gov. Kathy Hochul raised the prospect of removing Mayor Eric Adams from office late Monday and met with “key leaders” in Manhattan on Tuesday to discuss “the path forward, with the goal of ensuring stability for the City of New York.”
“Overturning the will of the voters is a serious step that should not be taken lightly,” Ms. Hochul said in a statement. “That said, the alleged conduct at City Hall that has been reported over the past two weeks is troubling and cannot be ignored.”
The governor was referring to comments from the federal prosecutor in Mr. Adams’s criminal case that the mayor’s lawyers had offered the White House a “quid pro quo” — helping President Trump’s immigration crackdown in return for dropping the charges. Her comments followed the resignations of four of Mr. Adams’s deputy mayors, including his second-in-command, amid criticism that the mayor has put his own interests above those of New Yorkers.
Last week, after months of overtures by Mr. Adams to Mr. Trump, the Justice Department moved to drop the corruption case against the mayor, arguing that it was hindering his ability to cooperate with the president’s crackdown on illegal immigration. (The prosecutor who alleged a quid pro quo resigned rather than withdraw the charges.)
On Monday night, Ms. Hochul, a fellow Democrat who has the power to remove the mayor under the State Constitution, said that the resignations in his cabinet prompted “serious questions about the long-term future of this mayoral administration.”
Calls for the mayor to resign are growing louder and more numerous, with the City Council speaker, Adrienne Adams, who has no relation to the mayor, writing on Monday that the mayor has “lost the confidence and trust of his own staff, his colleagues in government and New Yorkers.”
The mayor remains adamant: “I’m not stepping down, I’m stepping UP,” he wrote on X on Sunday, repeating a line he has used since September, when he was charged with bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign contributions.
Here’s what to know about the unfolding drama:
Who are the deputies who quit?
Maria Torres-Springer, the first deputy mayor; Meera Joshi, the deputy mayor for operations; Anne Williams-Isom, the deputy mayor for health and human services; and Chauncey Parker, the deputy mayor for public safety, who has been deeply involved in the city’s role in the president’s deportation plans.
Why did they quit?
“Due to the extraordinary events of the last few weeks and to stay faithful to the oaths we swore to New Yorkers and their families,” three of the officials wrote in a joint statement. The resignations came after tense meetings between Mr. Adams and his cabinet.
A person briefed on the resignations said that the four felt they could not continue working for a mayor whose personal interests risked outweighing the duties of his office. The Justice Department has said it could move to reinstate the charges after November’s election, giving the Trump administration enormous leverage over Mr. Adams to do its bidding as he campaigns for a second term.
What are Adams’s fellow Democrats saying and doing?
Some of the loudest criticism of the mayor has come, unsurprisingly, from fellow Democrats who are running against him, and some of them are doing what they can to make his life more difficult.
One candidate, Brad Lander, the city comptroller, threatened to try to start the complicated process of having Mr. Adams removed if he did not issue a “contingency plan” by Friday detailing plans to appoint interim deputies and stabilize the administration.
Another candidate, State Senator Zellnor Myrie, wrote to the judge overseeing Mr. Adams’s corruption case, asking him to reject the government’s request to drop the charges and appoint a special prosecutor.
How is Adams reacting to the chaos?
On Sunday, with his usual bluster at a church in Queens, the mayor compared himself to Lazarus, who rose from the dead, and vowed that though “people are dancing on my grave,” he had “a mission to finish” and was “going nowhere.”
A day later, defending himself at a rally, he implied he was a victim of something akin to Hitler’s “big lie.” He said that if you tell a lie long enough, people will tend to believe it, and he compared his situation to “a modern-day ‘Mein Kampf’” — the title of Hitler’s memoir.
Of the resignations of four of his eight deputy mayors, the mayor said in a statement, “Given the current challenges, I understand their decision and wish them nothing but success in the future. But let me be crystal clear: New York City will keep moving forward.”
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