NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Gov. Kathy Hochul wouldn’t rule out removing Mayor Eric Adams from office after the interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York accused the Justice Department of acceding to a “quid pro quo,” dropping Adams’ corruption case for help with President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda -- but that's nonsense, according to Adams.
“I want to be crystal clear with New Yorkers: I never offered — nor did anyone offer on my behalf — any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case. Never," Adams said in a statement released Friday afternoon.
He continued, "I am solely beholden to the 8.3 million New Yorkers that I represent and I will always put this city first. Now, we must put this difficult episode behind us so that trust can be restored, New York can move forward, and we can continue delivering for the people of this city."
Hochul, who is the only official in the state who can remove Adams from office, told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Thursday night that the allegations in a resignation letter from Danielle Sassoon are “extremely concerning and serious.” Sassoon stepped down Thursday as Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor rather than dropping the case against Adams as directed by the DOJ.
“This is not supposed to happen in our system of justice,” Hochul said. “The [Pam] Bondi administration in that Department of Justice is already showing they're corrupt.”
Hochul said she’d seen the letter from Sassoon, “but I cannot, as the governor of this state, have a knee jerk, politically motivated reaction like a lot of other people are saying right now.”
“I have to do what's smart, what's right, and I'm consulting with other leaders in government at this time,” the governor continued. “You got to have one sane person in this state who can cut through all the crap and say, ‘What does my responsibility guide me to do?’”
Hochul refrained from removing Adams from office when he was first hit with federal corruption charges in September, instead urging him to shake up his administration to give the public confidence in New York’s leadership.
Hochul told Maddow: “When the allegations came out last September and the city was in chaos, I said, ‘I will intercede, work with the mayor to get rid of a lot of people who are under indictment, calm it down…’”
The governor said she has to “maintain stability” in both the state and the city. “As governor, I also represent the city. These are my constituents as well. I'm going to make sure they're protected here. So this just happened. I need some time to process this and figure out the right approach,” she said.
In a Friday morning interview on "FOX & Friends" with border czar Tom Homan—who he met with Thursday—Adams said he and Hochul both have their jobs to do.
"She has her role, I have my role," Adams said. "And throughout this entire ordeal, which I think no American should have to go through—the torment of 15 months that my family and I had to endure for something I didn't do, I didn't do anything wrong. Throughout the entire ordeal I said one thing, 'my attorney will handle the legal part, I'm going to handle running this city.'"
Homan, for his part, later added, “Gov. Hochul is an embarrassment to the position she holds.”
Adams’ lawyer, Alex Spiro, said Thursday the "quid pro quo" claim was a “total lie.”
“We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us,” Spiro wrote. “We were asked if the case had any bearing on national security and immigration enforcement and we truthfully answered it did.”
While Hochul refrained from any actions against the mayor, her second in command, Lieutenant Gov. Antonio Delgado, urged the mayor to resign in a post on X Thursday evening.
“New York City deserves a Mayor accountable to the people, not beholden to the President. Mayor Adams should step down,” Delgado wrote.
And on Friday, state Sen. Mike Gianaris, a progressive Democrat who represents parts of Queens, also called on the mayor to he fired.
“The last thing the people of New York want is for our city to turn into an annex of the Trump administration, yet that's exactly what is happening,” Gianaris posted on X. “Eric Adams is clearly compromised and can no longer be considered the legitimate leader of our city. He must step down or be removed.”