NEW YORK (AP) — Gov. Kathy Hochul won’t immediately remove New York City Mayor Eric Adams from office, but will instead push for increased oversight of City Hall as he faces intense scrutiny over his relationship with the Trump administration.
Hochul will announce Thursday that she has, for now, decided against removing Adams from office, according to three people familiar with the governor’s plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to disclose its details.
The decision came after she solicited opinions this week from a roster of New York political figures over questions about whether Adams could independently govern following the Justice Department’s move to drop his corruption case so he could help with Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.
Rather than remove Adams, Hochul plans to propose legislation that would require City Hall to operate within new guardrails.
Two of the sources familiar with the strategy said the proposals include establishing a new deputy inspector general focused on New York City; a fund for the city’s comptroller, public advocate and council speaker to launch lawsuits against the federal government; and more money for the state comptroller to investigate the city’s finances.
At an unrelated news conference Thursday, the mayor declined to answer a question about having his mayoral power diminished. His spokesperson then hastily ended the event.
Adams has remained defiant in the face of growing calls to resign, insisting that New Yorkers are undeterred by the turmoil at City Hall as he makes his reelection pitch to voters.
“I will never surrender, never step down,” he said Wednesday, following his court hearing. “I’m going to step up and fight.”
Hochul — a centrist Democrat, as is Adams — has faced questions about the mayor’s future since his indictment in September on bribery and other charges. He has pleaded not guilty and said at a court hearing Wednesday that he hadn’t committed a crime.
Hochul has been reluctant to oust him, arguing that doing so would be undemocratic, while thrusting the city into a complex, court-like removal process that has never been used before against a sitting mayor of the country’s most populous city.
But after four of Adams’ top deputies quit on Monday, the governor said she had “serious questions about the long-term future of this mayoral administration.”
The deputies resigned after an extraordinary series of developments in Adams’ federal criminal case.
First, Justice Department leaders ordered prosecutors to drop it, saying it was impeding the mayor’s ability to help with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement push.
Then, some prosecutors and supervisors resigned rather than follow what they saw as an improper order, and the acting top prosecutor in Manhattan said Adams’ lawyers had offered to exchange his cooperation on immigration for a dismissal of his case. The mayor and his lead lawyer said they did no such thing.
Then, after some Justice Department figures finally filed paperwork to get the case dismissed, a judge summoned Adams and everyone else involved to court Wednesday to discuss the matter. The judge hasn’t ruled yet on the government’s request to close out the case.
Adams has been set to go on trial in April on charges of taking illegal campaign contributions and getting breaks on travel in exchange for doing favors for the Turkish government. In one episode, his indictment alleges, Adams pushed fire officials to let a Turkish consular building open without passing a fire inspection.
Adams has said there was nothing improper about his trips. He has characterized any help he provided to Turkish officials in dealing with the diplomatic building as just the routine work of an elected official helping people navigate bureaucracy.
___ Izaguirre reported from Albany, New York
