New York Mayor Eric Adams' Deal with Trump: A Political Puzzle

Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, found himself in a peculiar situation. He visited Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago and appeared on Tucker Carlson's show. Why? To get the Justice Department to drop charges against him. And it worked. The Justice Department, led by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, decided to drop the charges. They claimed that Adams' prosecution was interfering with the Trump administration's immigration policies. This decision was a big deal. It went against the usual norms of the Justice Department. Adams, who had previously criticized Joe Biden's policies, claimed he was being targeted for his political views. But the story didn't end there. On Friday, Tom Homan, a key figure in Trump's border policies, openly discussed the deal on Fox & Friends. He made it clear that Adams had agreed to support Trump's policies in exchange for the charges being dropped. This wasn't just about Adams and Trump. It was about corruption and self-dealing. The Justice Department's top prosecutors began resigning. They refused to dismiss the charges against Adams. Seven federal prosecutors resigned in total. The most scathing resignation letter came from Hagan Scotten, an assistant U. S. attorney. He wrote that the government shouldn't use charges as a bargaining tool. He also said that he wouldn't be the one to dismiss the charges, but someone else likely would. Eventually, a career prosecutor named Ed Sullivan agreed to sign the motion to dismiss the charges. This whole situation was a lot like the "Saturday Night Massacre" during the Watergate scandal. Then, Archibald Cox, a special prosecutor, was fired by President Richard Nixon. The number of resignations from the Trump DOJ was more than three times that figure. In any other administration, this would have led to impeachment proceedings. But Trump seemed to have learned from his own impeachment that quid pro quo wasn't a big deal anymore. Still, the mass defections from the Trump DOJ raised a question: Was Eric Adams really worth it? Danielle Sassoon, a decorated conservative who had just joined the Trump administration, wrote a remarkable letter. She said she had planned to file a superseding indictment against the mayor, adding on additional charges for conspiracy to obstruct justice. She wrote that this would have been based on evidence that Adams destroyed and instructed others to destroy evidence and provide false information to the F. B. I. It's unlikely that Adams' triumph will last long. Already, high-ranking New York Dems are calling for him to step down. And it could also be the beginning of a rough road ahead for Trump. With both of them, more legal trouble has never been far behind.