How much trouble is Mayor Eric Adams in this time?
Last week, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg charged Ingrid Lewis-Martin, once the most powerful person working under the mayor, with doing government favors for a pair of Manhattan real estate developers in exchange for cash bribes for herself and her son. She was charged with felony bribe receiving and money laundering, as well as conspiracy.
Lewis-Martin’s son, Glenn Martin II, was also indicted along with the two businessmen, Raizada Vaid and Mayank Dwivedi. Lewis-Martin has denied any wrongdoing. Lewis-Martin resigned from City Hall shortly before she was indicted. Adams, in recent days, has sought distance. He is, of course, battling his own corruption case, which was brought by the U.S. Attorney’s office in September.
No one knows what’s going to happen with any of these cases. Perhaps Lewis-Martin pleads guilty in return for a reduced sentence or goes to trial and wins. She could, obviously, lose there too. Adams’ corruption trial is set for April, in the heat of the Democratic primary for mayor. He is, for now, full-speed ahead, even after the Campaign Finance Board denied his campaign matching funds, citing the corruption indictment and other irregularities.
Adams has been openly flirting with the Republican Party and courting Donald Trump, who will be the president, once more, come January. Trump has entertained the idea of pardoning Adams. The mayor would want nothing more.
Bragg’s indictment, however, further complicates Adams’ legal future. Though the Manhattan DA has not charged the mayor with a crime, it’s not impossible to imagine that prosecutors will lean hard on Lewis-Martin to try to glean more information about the inner workings of Adams’ government. Faced with significant prison time, Lewis-Martin could turn on her boss.
If she does — and this is speculation — an indictment from the Manhattan DA’s office could be especially thorny for Adams. He would be charged for a state crime, and Trump’s pardon couldn’t save him. Trump certainly can’t save Lewis-Martin.
Can Adams actually save his own political career? Anything is possible. The odds, though, do not favor him. If Adams is not ready to resign and wants to battle on, he’ll be in a crowded Democratic primary where ranked-choice voting will determine the winner. RCV favors consensus-building and punishes polarizing candidates. For someone like Adams, that’s a nightmare.
This is why he seems to be weighing other options, like running on the Republican line. He could also mount an independent bid if the Democratic nominee isn’t very popular. Winning this way would be incredibly hard — it would help if Adams were independently wealthy, like Michael Bloomberg, or had a significant super PAC backing him — more plausible, perhaps, than outlasting a Democratic field during a corruption trial.
There’s a certain irony to all this new chaos. For the first time in three years, competent, well-respected bureaucrats are empowered at City Hall. Jessica Tisch, the technocratic daughter of a billionaire, won’t be easily displaced at the NYPD. Maria Torres-Springer, as first deputy mayor, wields significant leverage now, and it’s plausible both she and Tisch outlast Adams and remain in city government when a new mayor is sworn in. Tisch, at the very minimum, will want to be NYPD commissioner for more than a year; she is ambitious, and may see for herself a career like Ray Kelly’s or Bill Bratton’s.
All of this turnover came because corruption investigations and indictments forced it. Voters may not reward Adams, remembering instead all the damning headlines over the last year. The terrain, for this flamboyant and scandal-scarred mayor, remains perilous.
Ross Barkan is a journalist and author in New York City.
