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Will Trump Bail Eric Adams Out of His Legal Troubles? Prosecutors Say It May Be Easier Said Than Done
As a president infamous for issuing pardons heads back to the White House, he’ll face hurdles to any attempts to pull the plug on the ongoing corruption case against New York City’s mayor.
NEW YORK - Donald Trump's victory could portend a major stroke of luck for Mayor Eric Adams if the 47th president follows up on his claim that "lunatic" prosecutors have "persecuted" the mayor and orders his attorney general to withdraw the federal case against Adams.
Or if Adams is successfully convicted by U.S. attorneys from the Southern District of New York, Trump could pardon him.
How that plays out may take some time. Although Trump will likely move to replace Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams right away with a prosecutor more willing to see things his way, whomever he picks must still be confirmed by the Senate, a process that could take months.
The clock is ticking — both legally and politically. Adams' trial is set for April 21, 2025, and the mayoral primary takes place on June 24. It's possible that whatever Trump sets into motion may not come to bear until the trial is complete, or until voters go to the polls.
That would trigger what some experts see as the most likely scenario: Trump could simply pardon the mayor if he's convicted.
"If President Trump is looking to help Mayor Adams, the most direct and clean path to doing so is a pardon rather than trying to influence a new U.S. Attorney’s approach to the case," said Arlo Devlin-Brown, former chief of the public corruption unit in the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office and currently a partner at the law firm of Covington & Burling.
At a press briefing Wednesday at City Hall, Adams congratulated Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, promising to call Trump soon. As the briefing ended, Adams smiled and said nothing when a reporter asked if he thought Trump's return to the White House would help him in his ongoing criminal case.
After he spoke with Trump, Adams declined to comment on whether they discussed his criminal case, telling reporters Thursday: "I'm not going to go into private conversations."
Speculation that Trump could intervene on Adams' behalf has been fueled by Trump's baseless claims that the Biden administration targeted Adams because of the mayor’s repeated demands that the administration tighten up the border and do more to help the city manage a wave of incoming migrants.
At the recent Al Smith dinner, with Adams sitting a few seats away, Trump sympathized with the beleaguered mayor, stating, “I know what it’s like to be persecuted by the DOJ for speaking out against open borders," adding, "We were persecuted, Eric. I was persecuted, and so are you, Eric.”
And in his campaign rally at Madison Square Garden last month, Trump went further, claiming that he had predicted Adams would be indicted after Adams questioned Biden's handling of the migrant crisis.
"I said, ‘Well, he’s going to be indicted by these lunatics for saying that.’ A year later, he got indicted," Trump told the crowd of supporters.
In response, Adams appeared to return the favor, pushing back on descriptions of Trump as a fascist. Asked if he agreed with that description, Adams responded, “I had those terms hurled at me by some political leaders in the city, using terms like ‘Hitler’ and ‘fascists.’ My answer is no.”
Adams’ comment prompted one of his rivals in next year’s race for mayor, City Comptroller Brad Lander, to state, “It sure [looks] to me like the mayor was thinking, ‘How do I get a pardon from this guy?'"
Tell It to the Judge
For the moment, Adams' criminal case will continue to inch forward under a schedule set by Manhattan Federal Judge Dale Ho, with prosecutors continuing to hand over hundreds of thousands of emails and text messages obtained during their three-year investigation.
That’s supposed to finish up by Dec. 18, followed by the next scheduled court appearance in the case on Dec. 20.
Days after Trump begins his second term at the White House in January, both sides are set to face off in court over any motions Adams’ lawyers may file to contest the introduction of evidence by prosecutors.
Already Adams' attorneys are attacking the legitimacy of the indictment. Last week one of them, John Bash, argued that the bribery count pending against the mayor should be dismissed because the scenario outlined by the U.S. attorney does not meet the criteria of bribery.
Bash has longtime ties to conservative causes — and to Trump. In 2017, he served as special assistant and then assistant counsel in Trump's White House, before Trump appointed him U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas. He was also a law clerk for Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee to the Supreme Court, when Kavanaugh was serving on the appeals court bench.
Once Trump takes office Jan. 21, he can immediately remove Williams as U.S. attorney, but installing a more like-minded replacement will require Senate confirmation. Even with the Senate back in Republican hands, that process will still take time.
Devlin-Brown, the former head of public corruption cases in the Southern District, said even then, it's not necessarily a done deal that Williams' replacement would automatically move to halt the case — a turnabout that would have to include a legitimate explanation for doing so.
"A new U.S. attorney would likely take a close look at the charges against Mayor Adams, just as that person would look at other high-profile pending prosecutions," Devlin-Brown said. "But the new U.S. attorney is unlikely to dismiss the charges based on political directive for various reasons, including because of the devastating impact it would have on morale in the SDNY and the ability to lead the office."
"That said," he added, "if the new U.S. attorney sees the case differently, there could be changes."
There's another complicating factor: the judge in the case, Dale Ho.
Zachary Carter, a former Brooklyn U.S. attorney and corporation counsel for Mayor Bill de Blasio, pointed out that federal prosecutors who decide to withdraw cases must still seek the approval of the judge handling the case.
"You can't dismiss the case without the leave of the court," Carter noted. "While there's a strong presumption that the attorney general has the right to withdraw a case, under most circumstances it's not for nothing that you have to get permission from the court. If the court feels the dismissal is not in the interests of justice...this could be case particularly if they act quickly...the court would be in a position that this is a decision that seems to be taken not for any reasons related to the basis of the case and [say] ‘I believe that is not the interests of justice.’"
Then there's the politics of pulling the plug.
Trump's prior critiques of all the criminal cases currently pending against him — particularly the federal indictment brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith charging him with conspiring to overthrow the results of the 2020 election — imply that once he's elected, he will order his attorney general to terminate those cases.
But would that compulsion extend to other defendants he feels are being treated unjustly, like Adams?
That could be a difficult action to defend if the case is a strong one. Carter noted that the public hasn't seen the full extent of the federal government’s case against Adams, particularly the cooperating witnesses the indictment makes clear are behind the scenes.
"You know that probably a good half dozen of the folks mentioned that way in the indictment are cooperating witnesses," he said. "The nature of the stuff in the indictment had to come from insiders. Some of that stuff didn't come from documents."
But Liz Glazer, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor and now publisher of Vital City, highlighted Trump's track record of ignoring norms in both the legal and political arenas, including openly criticizing the Manhattan Supreme Court justice overseeing the criminal case that resulted in his conviction on 34 felonies. That judge is scheduled to sentence Trump Nov. 26.
"It's a question to what degree realpolitik matters to him, and as we've seen it doesn't. He's a complete norm changer," she said. "I imagine you would have big resignations throughout the [Manhattan U.S. attorney's] office if something like that happened. But as we've seen, I don't think he cares about that."
Then there's another potential game-changer: prosecutors have already said they expect to add more charges against Adams — and likely more defendants — in a superseding indictment. Several of Adams' top aides have already resigned after having their electronic devices seized by law enforcement as part of five ongoing corruption investigations.
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Glazer noted that that puts pressure on Williams to take action sooner rather than later.
"If that's going to happen, it has to happen soon, not just because of the new president coming in but also because [Adams] has an April trial date," she said. "And if [Williams] wants to keep that trial date, the U.S. attorney has to move with alacrity because a new defendant would say I need time to prepare."
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