Mayor Eric Adams’s successful effort to persuade the Trump administration to abandon the federal corruption indictment against him — saving him from a trial and potential prison time — was largely a political endeavor, not a legal one.
But it has nonetheless come at significant cost: The months of legal work that played out before, during and after his charm offensive won over President Trump has left him $3 million in debt.
The latest filing from his legal defense fund shows that Mr. Adams raised no money for the fund in the last three months, even as he remains on the hook for more than $700,000 per month to his lawyer, Alex Spiro, and Mr. Spiro’s firm, Quinn Emanuel, and has promised to pay his other criminal defense counsel at WilmerHale as much as $400,000 a month.
Donors had given more than $1.8 million to the fund since its creation in November 2023, with contributions coming from an influential consortium that included real estate leaders and former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The City Council approved a bill in 2019 to allow elected officials to create specific funds, separate from their campaign accounts, to pay for defense lawyers.
But donations to Mr. Adams’s re-election and legal defense funds have dramatically declined, as has his political viability and popularity. Only 20 percent of voters approved of Mr. Adams’s job performance — a record low — according to a poll by Quinnipiac University last month.
Todd Shapiro, a spokesman for the mayor’s campaign, said that Mr. Adams was exploring all appropriate avenues to address the debt and would do so “in a transparent and ethical manner.”
The mayor’s financial woes are among a bevy of problems that have arisen from his federal indictment and the impression that he entered into a quid pro quo with Mr. Trump to have the charges dropped.
The mayor has denied the quid pro quo, but he has also vowed to never publicly criticize Mr. Trump, a promise he upheld yet again on Wednesday.
At a City Council hearing about the threats that the Trump administration’s federal cuts posed to New York City, Mr. Adams’s top aides were absent, forbidden from testifying by the mayor’s office.
The Adams administration had said that it would submit written testimony instead, allowing it to avoid having to answer direct questions that could portray Mr. Trump negatively. But when the hearing began Wednesday morning, that testimony had yet to arrive.
The White House has already slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to protect the city from storms like Hurricane Ida, whose remnants killed 14 New Yorkers.
“It’s an absolute disgrace that the administration chose to refuse to show up today,” Councilman Justin Brannan, who helped lead the hearing, said on Wednesday.
The city’s upcoming budget relies on more than $7 billion in federal funding for services like school food programs, family shelters and child care vouchers, according to the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission. The city also relies on billions in federal support for public housing, public hospitals and Medicaid. The Trump administration is seeking to cut $1.5 trillion in federal spending over the next decade.
“The mayor once again has chosen to be silent, while Donald Trump makes us less safe, destabilizes our economy and deports our neighbors,” said Lincoln Restler, who led the hearing with Mr. Brannan.
Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokeswoman for Mr. Adams, described the hearing as an “orchestrated” public relations stunt and said that “New Yorkers can rest assured that we are actually focused on the substantive work to make sure they receive all the services they deserve.”
During a radio interview on Wednesday, Mr. Adams defended his gentle approach in dealing with the Trump administration.
“The president loves this city,” he said. “This is his city. He doesn’t want to see the city fail.”
In another highly unusual move tied to the Trump administration, the city’s Law Department — the lawyers who typically represent the mayoral administration on legal issues — determined that it would not represent the mayor in a lawsuit that the City Council filed against Mr. Adams on Tuesday.
The lawsuit, which also names the city’s Department of Correction and Randy Mastro, the first deputy mayor, as defendants, is trying to block an executive order that Mr. Mastro issued last week to allow federal immigration authorities to have a presence at the Rikers Island jail complex. The Council argued that the order was part of “a corrupt quid pro quo bargain” between Mr. Adams and President Trump involving the dismissal of the mayor’s federal corruption case.
But the Law Department, which is led by a mayoral appointee, “has advised that they will not be representing any party in this litigation,” Mr. Adams’s chief counsel, Allison Stoddart, wrote in a letter on Tuesday to a clerk in Manhattan state court.
The department has traditionally represented the mayor and city agencies in litigation, including in recent lawsuits by the City Council against Mr. Adams on issues related to a ban on solitary confinement and housing vouchers. The mayor will instead retain outside counsel.
Muriel Goode-Trufant, the city’s corporation counsel, released a statement that seemed to indicate that there was a conflict of interest because the Law Department, which she leads, also provided legal advice to the Council.
“Due to the fact that the New York City Law Department has provided advice to both sides of City Hall on the scope of the city’s sanctuary city laws, it has removed itself from representing either side of City Hall in this litigation,” she said.
But Jason Otaño, the Council’s general counsel, said that the department’s decision was highly unusual.
“I cannot recall a single instance in which the Law Department elected not to represent this mayor, or prior ones, when that officeholder was sued in his official capacity,” he wrote in a court filing on Wednesday. “The only rational conclusion that can be drawn from this remarkable decision was that the Law Department as an institution could not stand behind the mayor and the first deputy mayor’s actions.”
Jeffery C. Mays contributed reporting.
Emma G. Fitzsimmons is the City Hall bureau chief for The Times, covering Mayor Eric Adams and his administration.
Dana Rubinstein covers New York City politics and government for The Times.
Luis Ferré-Sadurní is a Times reporter covering immigration, focused on the influx of migrants arriving in the New York region.
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