Mayor Eric Adams of New York City met with President Trump in Washington on Friday as documents related to his abandoned federal corruption case were released.
The mayor’s office said that Mr. Adams planned to “discuss New York City priorities,” including infrastructure projects. After the meeting, the mayor said he brought up a wind farm project off the coast of Long Island that could have benefited the city but was canceled last month by the Trump administration.
The president offered another take: “I think he came in to thank me, frankly,” Mr. Trump said without elaborating.
Asked what they discussed, Mr. Trump said: “Almost nothing.”
Mr. Adams would appear to have reason for gratitude after the Trump administration moved to shutter his criminal case. On Friday, prosecutors released material related to the case, including search warrants and affidavits describing some of the evidence in the case. The judge who presided over the mayor’s case ordered that the documents should be made public in response to a request from The New York Times after the charges were dismissed.
Though the material runs close to 2,000 pages, an initial review indicated that the F.B.I. and prosecutors had been investigating whether Mr. Adams committed witness tampering, though they did not charge him with that crime when he was indicted. In a statement, a lawyer for Mr. Adams, Alex Spiro, said that the case “should never have been brought in the first place and is now over.”
Mr. Trump had previously said he knew nothing about Mr. Adams’s case and was not involved in it.
The material helps to elucidate the charges against Mr. Adams, which a federal judge, Dale E. Ho, dismissed last month after a request from high-ranking officials in the Justice Department who said the case was hindering the mayor’s cooperation with the president’s immigration agenda.
Friday was the first public meeting between Mr. Adams and Mr. Trump since Mr. Trump returned to the White House. Mr. Adams flew to Florida in January to have lunch with Mr. Trump shortly before his inauguration, and Mr. Adams attended the inauguration.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Friday that Mr. Adams had requested the meeting and “the president was willing to take it.”
The trip on Friday came at a particularly sensitive moment, as the city navigates several thorny issues involving the Trump administration.
On Tuesday, the New York Police Department announced it was looking into why its officers gave investigators from the Department of Homeland Security the sealed arrest record of a New Jersey woman who was detained at a protest as part of their efforts to deport her. And Mr. Adams agreed to allow the federal government to open offices at the Rikers Island jail complex, but a state judge temporarily blocked the plan last month.
Mr. Adams appeared eager to promote Friday’s trip to Washington as he runs for a second term. He shared three videos on social media on Friday about the importance of working with the president.
“We must have a dialogue with the White House,” he said in a video.
The mayor also mentioned “developing our own chips,” a reference to the prospect of bringing computer chip manufacturing to the city.
The Justice Department’s move to abandon the case against Mr. Adams caused an uproar within the department and led to the resignation of at least eight prosecutors in New York and Washington, including the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Danielle Sassoon.
Mr. Adams, who has denied any wrongdoing, had pleaded not guilty to the five charges against him, and had been expected to go to trial last month.
Judge Ho, in dismissing the case, said the arrangement between the mayor and the Justice Department “smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions.” He added that Mr. Adams, like any other defendant, remained innocent until proven guilty.
Mr. Adams, a Democrat, is running for re-election as an independent in November after his party criticized him for his alliance with Mr. Trump. After his case was dropped, Mr. Adams continued to defend Mr. Trump and to argue that the justice system was political, promoting the book “Government Gangsters” by Mr. Trump’s F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, as he celebrated his legal victory.
The Adams administration has at times pushed back on parts of Mr. Trump’s agenda, including by signing onto an amicus brief on Thursday opposing Mr. Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants.
Several mayoral candidates have criticized Mr. Adams’s coziness with Mr. Trump and expressed concern over the president’s proposed budget cuts and threats of mass deportations.
Zellnor Myrie, a state lawmaker who is running for mayor, said in a statement that Mr. Adams cared more about “staying on Donald Trump’s good side than fighting for New York City.”
“Adams already gave up his independence as mayor to save himself from criminal prosecution,” he said. “Now, Trump and his cronies are coming to collect, and New York City will keep paying the price.”
Erica L. Green and Maggie Haberman contributed reporting from Washington.
Emma G. Fitzsimmons is the City Hall bureau chief for The Times, covering Mayor Eric Adams and his administration.
Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in the New York region for The Times. He is focused on political influence and its effect on the rule of law in the area’s federal and state courts.
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