As New York City descended into a full-blown crisis of confidence in Mayor Eric Adams this week, alarmed civic leaders and elected officials turned the pressure up on Gov. Kathy Hochul to invoke her authority to remove him from office.
They argued that the extraordinary step had become necessary after the prosecutor overseeing a federal corruption case against Mr. Adams said on Thursday that the mayor and the Justice Department had struck a corrupt bargain to shield him from further prosecution. The prosecutor resigned rather than ratify the deal.
Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, called the allegations “extremely concerning and serious,” and was soliciting views from powerful fellow Democrats and her closest advisers.
But five people familiar with the governor’s thinking said that Ms. Hochul favored a deliberative path. She had not yet concluded that Mr. Adams was posing the kind of urgent threat to the city’s governance to warrant an intervention that could unleash far-reaching practical, legal and political consequences, according to the people, who were not authorized to discuss her position publicly.
While the State Constitution clearly gives the governor the power to remove the mayor, history offers little guidance for how such a move might unfold. No governor since Franklin D. Roosevelt has even tried to use the removal power against a sitting New York City mayor, and even that almost century-old action never reached a conclusion.
Mr. Adams and his defenders could challenge any action by the governor in court, or at least demand a right to defend themselves against a removal proceeding. A move by Ms. Hochul would also almost certainly anger the Trump administration at a time when she is trying to persuade the president not to undo the state’s new congestion pricing program.
It could also set off a string of political events that could lead to one of her top rivals, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, becoming mayor.
Ms. Hochul signaled some of her concerns Thursday night in an interview on MSNBC.
“I cannot, as the governor of this state, have a knee-jerk, politically motivated reaction like a lot of other people are saying right now,” she said. “I have to do what’s smart, what’s right, and I’m consulting with other leaders in government at this time.”
She added: “You got to have one sane person in this state who can cut through all the crap and say, ‘What does my responsibility guide me to do?’”
The governor’s thinking may change. The drama swirling around Mr. Adams has unfolded rapidly this week.
Top Justice Department officials on Monday ordered prosecutors to dismiss the charges against Mr. Adams, including a bribery count. By Thursday, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Danielle R. Sassoon, and several other department officials resigned rather than obey the order, and they asserted that there had been a quid pro quo. (Mr. Adams strongly disputed that.)
Former allies of the mayor publicly worried that he was now governing in Mr. Trump’s interest, not the city’s — a concern that deepened after Mr. Adams met on Thursday with Mr. Trump’s border czar, Thomas Homan, and announced an executive order that would allow federal immigration authorities into the Rikers Island jail complex.
The sequence of events prompted more New York officials, including Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, to either call for Mr. Adams to resign or be removed.
“As long as Trump wields this leverage over Adams, the city is endangered,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a post on social media. “We cannot be governed under coercion. If Adams won’t resign, he must be removed.”
Initiating the removal of Mr. Adams, who has always insisted he was innocent of the charges, would set off an extraordinary and unpredictable course of events. A mayor of New York City has never been removed by the governor. The closest precedent occurred in 1931, when Roosevelt pushed to remove Mayor Jimmy Walker. The matter was never formally tested, however: Fourteen days of hearings were held, but Mr. Walker eventually resigned and moved to Europe.
Jerry H. Goldfeder, a longtime election lawyer who teaches at Fordham Law School, said in an interview that Mr. Roosevelt allowed Mr. Walker “free rein” to call witnesses and introduce evidence to defend himself. If Ms. Hochul were to play this card, he said, she would be on firm ground so long as Mr. Adams was given clear reasons for his removal and the chance to offer a defense.
“If the governor is going to charge a mayor with the kind of conduct that she believes requires removal, she should have an expansive view of what due process rights he’s entitled to,” Mr. Goldfeder said.
Roosevelt’s ability to call the hearings stemmed from the State Constitution and a two-sentence section in the City Charter that states: “The mayor may be removed from office by the governor upon charges and after service upon him of a copy of the charges and an opportunity to be heard in his defense.”
“I think her main consideration is likely to be the disruption to city and state government, versus waiting until November,” said Evan A. Davis, a onetime counsel to Gov. Mario M. Cuomo. Mr. Davis has previously called on Ms. Hochul to use this power.
“The closer you get to November, obviously the less reason there is to go through all the rigmarole you would have to go through,” he said.
If Ms. Hochul were to remove Mr. Adams, she would be able to suspend him for “a period not exceeding 30 days.” Mr. Walker’s hearings might offer some inspiration but “there is nothing at all mechanical about it,” Mr. Davis said. “There is no established process you could just fall right into and set in motion.”
Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, who would become the acting mayor if Mr. Adams were to resign or be removed, said on Friday that he wished the mayor would do what is best for the city and step aside.
Mr. Goldfeder wrote in a law paper in the fall that there was little question that Ms. Hochul had the power to remove Mr. Adams, but “a governor who chooses to exercise the power of removal has no clear guideposts, and must navigate proceedings with care.”
Ms. Hochul faced a less intense version of this pressure in the fall. After Mr. Adams was first charged, he and the governor spoke multiple times, and she was able to push him into cutting ties with several aides who were also enmeshed in scandal. She instructed her legal team to study how the removal process might work but did not go further at the time.
“When the allegations came out last September and the city was in chaos, I said, ‘I will intercede, work with the mayor to get rid of a lot of people who are under indictment, calm it down, bring in a new police chief commissioner,’” Ms. Hochul told Rachel Maddow of MSNBC.
“Our subways are safer, people are feeling better around the city, more people are coming back,” the governor said. “I don’t want our rebirth to be stopped by this.”
Looming over this is a set of political risks for Ms. Hochul. Mr. Adams would be all but certain to make a removal hearing about white elected officials targeting the city’s second Black mayor. His standing among this key group of voters appears to be faltering, though.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, a longstanding ally of the mayor’s who wields considerable influence among his political base, was adamant in the fall that the governor should not remove Mr. Adams. But in an interview on Friday, he said he thought “the Trump people have compromised him. And I think that he’s put the city where we are hostage.”
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