A throng of congressional Republicans excoriated a panel of big-city Democratic mayors during a contentious Wednesday hearing, but they were a lot kinder to moderate Mayor Eric Adams.
The GOP members of the House Oversight Committee repeatedly asked the Democratic mayors, except Adams, questions about their policies against cooperating with federal immigration authorities. However, Hizzoner did face a barrage of tough questions from fellow Democrats over allegations that his attorney made a deal with President Trump’s Justice Department to toe the line on immigration enforcement in exchange for dropping his federal corruption case.
Meanwhile, as one Republican Congress member after another hammered the mayors of Denver, Chicago, and Boston on their cities’ so-called “sanctuary” laws, they mostly left Adams untouched during the 6-hour proceeding on March 5.
The few times that the GOP members addressed or questioned Adams, they went out of their way to thank him for being the only mayor on the panel to commit to working with federal immigration authorities in some cases.
“You have publicly stated that you were willing to work with [US Immigration and Customers Enforcement] on detaining the most criminal illegals, and I want to publicly thank you for that,” said US Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the committee chair.
At another point in the hearing, US Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL) alleged that Adams is being “attacked because he’s agreed to cooperate with federal officials to uphold the laws of the United States.” Rep. William Timmons (R-SC) repeated the unsubstantiated claim that former President Biden’s Justice Department indicted Adams as retribution for criticizing his administration’s border policies.
“The only one of you that stood up to the previous administration was under investigation shortly thereafter,” Timmons said. “Weird how that happens.”
Pressed on alleged deal with Trump
Meanwhile, the few tough lines of tough questioning that Adams faced came from those in his own party.
US Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), a Democrat representing part of California, charged that Adams is in a “different position” from the other mayors on the panel who faced threats of prosecution from Republicans over entforcing their sanctuary laws. He went on to quote former acting Manhattan US Attorney Danielle Sassoon, who resigned last month, saying that she was “confident” in Adams’ corruption case and refused to comply with the DOJ’s order to drop the charges.
Six other federal prosecutors resigned in protest rather than write a motion to dismiss Adams’ case.
Garcia also noted that the Justice Department is requesting to toss Adams’ case “without prejudice,” meaning the DOJ can resurrect it at any time.
The Congress member said he thinks that is why Adams did a joint interview with Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan, whom he dubbed “the architect of family separation,” on Fox & Friends just days after the DOJ requested the charges be dropped. During the interview, Homan said he would be “up [Adams’] butt” if the mayor did not honor their behind-closed-doors agreement on immigration enforcement.
“You sat next to him, you smiled, you bad-mouthed your own City Council,” Garcia said. “Now, Mr. Mayor, we have a right to know if the Trump administration has actually coerced you into agreeing to anything. Mayor Adams, I also want to be very clear: Are you selling out New York to save yourself from prosecution?”
As he has consistently done, including under oath at a recent court hearing, Adams denied the allegations: “There’s no deal, no quid pro quo, and I did nothing wrong.”
“Anything dealing with this case, out of deference to Judge [Dale] Ho, who’s now addressing it, I’m going to refer to his actions,” Adams added, referring to the federal judge assigned to his case. He repeated a similar line throughout the hearing when other members asked about the alleged quid pro quo.
Rather than immediately agreeing to drop Adams’ charges, Judge Ho assigned an independent counsel to argue on behalf of keeping the case alive and is due to consider arguments in a March 14 hearing.
In another tense exchange, US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx/Queens), one of Adams’ left-leaning foils, pushed him on details of Sassoon’s allegations. She read excerpts from the resignation letters of both Sassoon and Hagan Scotton, who served as the lead prosecutor on Adams’ case.
“The acting US Attorney, the assistant US Attorney, all gave up their entire careers, Republicans included, [rather] than drop these charges,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “These are not Democratic US Attorneys; these are Republican US Attorneys, who have trained under Republican Supreme Court justices, who have stated and suggested as well that the prosecutorial power at the Department of Justice may be influencing what is occurring.”
