New York’s mayor is defiant, and his city has tolerated its share of corruption.
By the time Eric Adams addressed reporters under a rain-soaked canopy outside Gracie Mansion yesterday morning, the biggest question about his tenure as mayor of New York seemed to be how soon it would end. Fellow Democrats started calling on him to step down even before federal prosecutors formally accused Adams of defrauding the city and doing the bidding of the Turkish government. And in recent weeks, the leaders of the nation’s largest police department and public school system had resigned from his administration amid a series of investigations.
Adams, who has denied the charges and vowed to stay on, already had at least four serious challengers to his reelection bid next year. Now a much larger number of Democrats—including former Governor Andrew Cuomo—are salivating at the prospect of a special election if Adams steps down.
But don’t assume he’s going anywhere.
“He is not going to resign,” predicted Mitchell L. Moss, a longtime observer of New York politics who has advised, formally and informally, some of its biggest stars over the past four decades. Moss, an NYU professor, has seen the scandals that have taken down governors such as Cuomo (sexual harassment, which he denied) and Eliot Spitzer (prostitution), members of Congress like Anthony Weiner (sending explicit photos to minors), and dozens of elected officials at lower levels of government. With few exceptions, New Yorkers accused of wrongdoing have left neither quickly nor quietly. Some have stayed in office quite a while. And that was true before a New Yorker convicted of 34 felonies won the Republican nomination for president. “We’re living in a different world from the one where you would be disqualified for a divorce,” Moss said.
