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A New York judge on Friday said he would not immediately dismiss Eric Adams’s corruption case, but ordered the Democratic New York City mayor’s trial delayed indefinitely after the justice department asked for the charges to be dismissed.
In a written ruling, the US district judge Dale Ho in Manhattan said he would appoint an outside lawyer, Paul Clement of the law firm Clement & Murphy PLLC, to present arguments against the federal prosecutors’ bid to dismiss, in order to help the judge make his decision.
Justice department officials in Washington asked Ho to dismiss the charges against Adams on 14 February. A hearing was held in New York earlier this week.
That came about after several prosecutors resigned rather than follow orders from the acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, an appointee of Donald Trump and the Republican president’s former personal criminal defense lawyer, to seek dismissal of the case brought last year by prosecutors during the Biden administration.
The current justice department argued that dismissal was needed so Adams could focus on helping Trump crack down on illegal immigration. The controversy, especially because the city has a strong sanctuary law designed to stop local enforcement from assisting federal immigration enforcement, has sparked a political crisis in the most populous US city. Senior Democrats have said that dismissing the charges makes Adams beholden to Trump’s administration.
Adams, 64, was charged last September with taking bribes and campaign donations from Turkish nationals seeking to influence him. Adams, running for re-election this year, has pleaded not guilty.
Many have called on Adams to resign.
Four of the mayor’s deputies plan to resign amid loss of confidence in the mayor. The governor of New York state, Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said on Thursday she would not use her power to remove Adams, but proposed new oversight of the mayor’s office.
