There aren’t many things left to happen for the first time in New York City, but on Wednesday night Eric Adams became the first sitting New York mayor to be indicted on federal criminal charges.
The details aren’t yet public, but they’re believed to stem from a corruption investigation that has focused at least in part on improper relations with the Turkish government.
A former cop who grew up in a poor neighborhood, Adams, a Democrat, was elected as the city’s second black mayor in 2021, pledging to be tough on crime, to right the city after the pandemic, and to win the city’s endless war on rats.
He has been mired in scandal for much of that time. There are at least four ongoing federal probes of Adams or his top officials. This month alone, those investigations have led to the resignations of the police commissioner and the chancellor of New York City’s public school system.
Adams says he is innocent, but he is already facing calls to resign, including from New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
As details emerge, we’ll be watching to see if this unprecedented corruption scandal in America’s largest city bleeds into the national conversation as the Presidential election approaches.
