New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s administration is in chaos as federal probes target his inner circle

(CNN) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s administration is unraveling.

Late Saturday night, the mayor abruptly announced the resignation of his top lawyer and most ardent public defender. Days earlier, his police commissioner stepped down under pressure as a quartet of federal probes targeting numerous members of Adams’s inner circle hits a boil.

The stunning departure of chief counsel Lisa Zornberg, a former federal prosecutor, opened up a new and troubling chapter in the political and legal crisis now gripping City Hall.

“I am tendering my resignation, effective today,” Zornberg wrote in a short letter, “as I have concluded that I can no longer effectively serve in my position.” Adams in a statement thanked her and said he would name a temporary replacement in the coming days.

“These are hard jobs and we don’t expect anyone to stay in them forever,” Adams added in a bid to downplay the remarkable nature of Zornberg’s decision.

By Monday, at least three Democratic officeholders – progressives from the state assembly, Senate and city council – had called on Adams to resign. The mayor rejected the notion in a call with reporters and suggested his critics, particularly those who have sparred with him before, were politically motivated.

“Any time anything happens in this city, and they call for me to leave, are we supposed to listen to them now?” Adams said. “I was elected by the people of this city and I am going to continue to meet my obligation to the people of this city.”

Adams has been fending off allegations that corruption and malfeasance permeate the highest ranks of his administration for months, first stemming from an active federal investigation into corruption and illegal campaign donations linked to Turkey and foreign travel, according to a source familiar with the matter. Adams is now entering an already fraught 2025 re-election bid under the cloud of at least four separate federal investigations – a political and legal onslaught that New York Democrats broadly expect to ramp up in the coming weeks and months.

Adams has not been accused of any wrongdoing and the administration has said it will cooperate with all investigations.

Brian Blais, a former assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York, spoke to CNN about the potential problems Adams could face.

“If campaign finance related charges are brought, or FARA (foreign agent registration act) charges relating to acting as an agent of the Turkish government, or bribery charges to the extent he was taking favorable actions in exchange for those campaign contributions, those are all serious charges, and those carry significant consequences,” said Blais.
“There’s at least some real degree of legal peril for the mayor.”

The growing probes – underscored by increasingly aggressive tactics from prosecutors, who stopped Adams on the street last year to seize his phone – also signal mounting political trouble for the retired police captain who outlasted a crowded field of Democrats in 2021 on his way to winning the city’s top job. Even before he was elected, Adams embraced the national media spotlight, declaring himself the “face of the new Democratic Party” and, after being invited to the White House, described himself as “the Biden of Brooklyn.”

But the luster quickly faded. First with Biden, after Adams publicly criticized the president’s handling of the border and a migrant crisis that hit hard in New York. The mayor’s reputation for enjoying the nightlife – at the expense, Adams’s critics say, of his day job – and repeated clashes over city spending, especially on education, dimmed his political star.

Adams’s political troubles, though, have been magnified and multiplied by the federal probes, which are picking up pace as the 2024 political season heats up.

Investigators in the Southern District of New York have been circling Adams and his administration for nearly a year. Last November, the mayor’s chief fundraiser was raided by FBI agents. Days later, Adams himself was presented with a federal search warrant for his electronics. That remarkable escalation by federal prosecutor Damian Williams was followed by a period of relative quiet until earlier this month, when FBI officials issued search warrants and showed up at the homes of several Adams administration officials.

The group included the city’s First Deputy Commissioner Sheena Wright, the Schools Chancellor David Banks and the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks III, according to multiple sources familiar with the probe. Investigators also issued a subpoena to Terence Banks, the youngest of the Banks’ brothers – who ran a lobbying firm that advertised “government relations” and promised to help private sector clients navigate “New York’s intricate infrastructure and political landscape.” Tim Pearson, a former NYPD officer and adviser to the mayor, was also included in the searches, sources briefed on the investigation say.

None of the officials have been accused of any crime. Wright said in a briefing last week, “I’m confident that I have done nothing wrong,” and was “cooperating fully.” David Banks said in a statement he was “cooperating with a federal inquiry.”

An attorney for Phil Banks said in a statement, “In my judgment I don’t believe he has any criminal liability in this investigation whatsoever.” An attorney for Terence Banks told CNN, “We have been assured by the Government that Mr. Banks is not a target of this investigation.”

CNN has reached out to an attorney for Pearson for further comment. US attorneys’ offices and the FBI have declined to comment.

But the most shocking blow landed at One Police Plaza.

NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban, the leader of the largest and most expensive police force in the nation, had his phone seized along with several other police officials’ devices as part of an investigation into a nightclub security business run by his twin brother, a source familiar with the investigation told CNN. He resigned under pressure days later, saying in a statement that “news around recent developments has created a distraction for our department.”

Caban’s lawyers said on Thursday they’ve been informed he is not a target of any investigation and he expects to cooperate fully with the government.

In a statement to CNN on Sunday, Adams’s top spokesperson touted the administration’s record on public safety and affordability, and suggested New Yorkers were not paying close attention to the investigations.

“We are investing in the programs and initiatives that working-class New Yorkers care about – that’s what our city’s residents and our administration are focused on every day,” said Fabien Levy, the deputy mayor for communications. “No matter what is going on in our city, New Yorkers recognize that we are in a much better place today than we were 2.5 years ago.”

While the spate of aggressive investigative maneuvers sent shockwaves through political and law enforcement circles, Adams has not been charged with any crime. That decision will ultimately come down to the discretion of Williams’s office, compounding the pressure on the prosecutor as he seeks to navigate a fraught moment – with the presidential election less than two months away.

“If something is going to happen, if there are people in the mayor’s political orbit, or the mayor himself, who is going to be charged, I think that, in DOJ ‘s view, it likely needs to happen by March (2025),” said Blais, now a partner at the law firm Ropes and Gray. “So you’re talking about a six-to-seven month window left before any significant action is likely, or during which any significant action is likely to occur.”

Other observers are predicting a shorter timeline at least in part because of the uncertainty surrounding this November’s election. Victory for former President Donald Trump, who would again take over the Justice Department, could upend Williams’s office.

One former top aide to top prosecutors in New York told CNN that Williams, “a very thoughtful, considered guy,” is conscious of the stakes – both in this election cycle and the broader sweep of city history.

“He’s aware of all the implications here,” the former aide said. “He’s aware that this is the second Black mayor. He’s aware that he’s a Black prosecutor. None of this is happening without that awareness, which to me makes it even more scary if I’m Eric Adams.”

Williams on Monday, while announcing public corruption charges against two former fire department chiefs in what is believed to be an unrelated probe, demurred when asked what he would tell New Yorkers concerned over the City Hall investigations.

“I am constrained on what I can say,” Williams told reporters. “I speak when there is something to be said and I don’t have anything to say about that at this point.”

He did, however, offer a pointed message about his office’s work.

“We are determined to address it from root to branch, and our work is far from done,” Williams said. “If you are aware of and participated in corrupt activity in our government, now is the time to come forward to get on the right side of the law.”

For his part, the mayor has insisted that he never broke the law, nor knew of any of his friends and colleagues’ potential wrongdoing. During brief remarks to reporters after Caban stepped down, Adams insisted again that he was “surprised” by the breadth of probes and said he was taking “them extremely seriously.”

“I’ve spent more than 20 years in law enforcement, and so every member of my administration knows my expectations that we must follow the law,” Adams said, repeating a variation on a message he’s given a handful of times now.

Challengers emerge in 2025 race

This latest round of phone seizures and subpoenas have, as a political matter, all but guaranteed that Adams will face a robust set of Democratic primary challengers next year.

State Sen. Zellnor Myrie of Brooklyn is expected to launch his bid soon. City Comptroller Brad Lander is already in, along with his predecessor, Scott Stringer, who also ran in 2021. Jessica Ramos, a state senator from Queens, kicked off her campaign on Friday, less than a day after Caban resigned.

Others, including state assemblymember Zohran Mamdani could still join the fray. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 with impeachment looming following the release of a report that found he sexually harassed 11 women, has also seeded rumors about a potential run. Cuomo has denied the allegations.

Adams’s record as mayor, headlined by controversial budget cuts and what critics call a lack of a signature program or legislative achievement, always seemed bound to attract intra-party challengers. But the close-to-home nature of the federal probes appear – at least to some rival Democrats – to be a uniquely damaging development.

“Crises are a problem when they bring up for an incumbent candidate things people were already feeling and double down on or amplify something that was already out there,” said Stringer adviser Alyssa Cass.

Another veteran New York campaign strategist with experience in City Hall but no ties to this race and speaking anonymously because of the sensitive nature of the latest developments, warned that Adams’s challengers needed to carefully calibrate their messages. Their attacks, so far, have mostly focused on a perception of “chaos” in the administration and an argument that Adams is a weak manager.

“Adams does not lose unless you start taking away some part of his coalition,” the strategist said. “And that is a working-class coalition. You don’t need to speak about who’s managing city operations, you need to talk about who’s getting you what you need, to (argue that) Adams has been compromised and is totally beholden to these shady special interests. And it’s hurting you.”

As those political chips fall in place, other Democratic strategists and operatives say now is the time for Adams to focus on that base, with its backbone in Southeast Queens, and remind supporters why they voted for him in the first place.

“Just because Caban resigned doesn’t mean that the problems are going to go away, even if he tries to cut ties with some of these folks,” Camille Rivera, a New York City-based political strategist, told CNN. “I would run a campaign now, I would be out there in the community, running my town halls, being in the districts, having conversations with my people and solidifying my base if I feel like I’ve done nothing wrong.”

That message, though, has become increasingly tough to get across – and not only because of his Covid quarantine. In some of the most recent, in-depth polling, from December 2023, when he was only facing a probe into his campaign fundraising, Adams’s overall approval rating dropped to a staggering 28%, according to a Quinnipiac University survey.

Hispanic voters, a critical part of his base, came in even lower at 20%. Among Black voters, Adams was still favored by 10 points, 48% to 38%, an advantage he cannot afford to forfeit. The mayor’s office lashed out over the poll, with a spokesman criticizing its methodology and pointing to falling crime – which has gone down in the city and nationally – and an improved economic outlook.

Adams received a boost earlier in the summer when the Rev. Al Sharpton wrote an op-ed backing the mayor and suggesting that the opposition was racially-coded, recalling the defeat of the city’s first Black Mayor, David Dinkins, to Rudy Giuliani in 1993.

“The criticism of Adams and the disconnect between perception and reality of his administration of this city is extreme,” Sharpton wrote. “Somehow it seems easier for those who are against him to get their message through, and for the damning, coded, curse of incompetence to be laid on his head.”

Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, a Brooklyn Democratic leader and top ally, delivered a similar message last year, telling reporters she was “concerned about whether these investigations are just targeting him because he’s a Black mayor.”

Adams has not directly embraced that narrative, but he has repeatedly cast himself as unduly persecuted – including referencing the Biblical Book of Job, the story of a righteous man whose faith is tested by a series of personal calamities.

“I wish I could tell you that I had one moment in my life that was a Job moment. But I did not have one, I had many,” he said during a visit last Sunday to the Power and Authority Evangelical Ministry in East New York, another political stronghold.

Adams is not the first mayor to find himself under investigation, but if prosecutors decide to bring charges, he could become the first New York mayor indicted in the modern era. Mayor Jimmy Walker resigned in 1932 while facing an investigation.

More recently, former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio found himself in the crosshairs of investigators because of his fundraising practices before the US Attorney’s Office declined to bring charges against him.

It’s still unclear when each of the Adams administration’s investigations began, but former Assistant US Attorney Jennifer Beidel says it’s possible that a phone seizure in one case could lead investigators onto another totally different case.

“That’s one of the most dangerous things about having your electronic devices seized. We all have a lot of material on it,” said Beidel, now a government investigations attorney at the law firm Dykema. “So you don’t have much ability to limit where law enforcement takes that info after.”

Despite the ongoing cases, Biedel told CNN it has become clear that federal law enforcement agencies are zeroed in on City Hall.

“The goal in the public corruption unit is to focus their resources on conduct that is concerning,” she said. “They wouldn’t continue that apparent focus if they didn’t believe there was something there.”

That reality, in legal but also political terms, is setting in among some of Adams’s closest allies and friends in the administration.

“I had a number of FBI agents who came to my home and wanted my personal phone and my DOE phone, outside of that I don’t know a lot,” David Banks, the city schools chancellor, said on Friday, adding that federal agents have not yet returned his phones. “We will all wait and see where these investigations go.”

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