Donald Trump has Eric Adams where he wants him
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 25
CRIME MINUS PUNISHMENT DEP'T.
Crook Mayor Makes One More Crooked Deal
DONALD TRUMP, THROUGH acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove, ordered the Justice Department to drop its indictments against New York Mayor Eric Adams. Some version of this was blatantly in the works all along, as Adams made a point of refusing to criticize Trump in the stretch run of the presidential campaign; once Trump set his administration's benchmark for lawlessness by freeing all the January 6 criminals, firing the people who prosecuted them, and preemptively shutting down any other investigations into the Capitol attack, there was no way to imagine that Adams' bribery and fraud cases would survive.
Still, in true Eric Adams fashion, Mayor Cop managed to make a scummy deal even scummier. Bove—Trump's personal attorney turned personal enforcer in the Justice Department transition—announced the move in an incoherent and contemptuous memo, ordering the case dismissed "without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based," and demanding that Adams' security clearances be restored.
Regardless of what Adams may or may not have done, Bove wrote, the "timing of the charges"—nine months before this summer's scheduled Democratic mayoral primary—"threatened the integrity of the proceedings." And he accused the Biden administration of having ulterior motives for targeting Adams, transplanting a conspiracy theory from the New York Post's front page to Justice Department letterhead. "It cannot be ignored," Bove wrote, "that Mayor Adams criticized the prior Administration's immigration policies before the charges were filed."
What Bove chose to set aside, instead, was the ample evidence that Adams defrauded the public out of millions of dollars in campaign matching funds, without which he almost certainly would not have eked out his narrow victory for the Democratic nomination in 2021. Not that Bove rejected that evidence. He simply ordered the next U.S. Attorney for the Southern District not to consider it until after Adams had finished running for reelection.
This left the city in an even worse position than simply having a corrupt mayor. Now, it has a corrupt mayor who is in debt to, and at the mercy of, a corrupt president. What the president was demanding in return was spelled out fairly bluntly:
[T]he pending prosecution has unduly restricted Mayor Adams' ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior Administration. We are particularly concerned about the impact of the prosecution on Mayor Adams' ability to support critical, ongoing federal efforts "to protect the American people from the disastrous effects of unlawful mass migration and resettlement" as described in Executive Order 14165.
Bove added a footnote that could only be read as taunting:
Your Office correctly noted in a February 3, 2025 memorandum, "as Mr. Bove clearly stated to defense counsel during our meeting [on January 31, 2025], the Government is not offering to exchange dismissal of a criminal case for Adams's assistance on immigration enforcement."
Bove was not offering Adams the dismissal in exchange for helping the Trump administration hunt down immigrants in New York City—he was just dismissing the case, with the option to revisit it in the future, while expressing the hope that the mayor will help Trump with the immigrants. Not a bribe, that is, but an ongoing act of extortion.
Inauguration Day was only three weeks ago, and federal law enforcement is in a state of collapse. Trump is threatening to purge the FBI of thousands of agents who investigated his own crimes; Attorney General Pam Bondi has directed the Justice Department to stop focusing on foreign influence cases or international corporate crime. And now Eric Adams is being liberated from his indictments so he can assist with the Trump agenda. Whatever the mayor ends up doing for the president, it won't make New York more lawful.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, February 9, 2025
★★★★★ Trickling and sloshing sounds reached the bedroom, warning that the forecast decay of the overnight snowfall was at hand. Outside, the view already had the gray tinge of slush. A woman in a thick coat labored up the uncleared sidewalk with rubber boots and a metal cane. Huge chunks of snow went plunging past the front windows, melted loose from somewhere higher. Here and there in the afternoon a glimpse of blue peeped through the massed clouds. The gutter and curb were thick with fluffy slush, but the last round of wintry mix had stabilized the snow, leaving it dense and durable under a crust of ice. The slope from the park gate down toward the Pool was keeping its covering despite a bit of desultory sledding; a tall snowman with a sprig of willow for a ponytail stood uphill on the opposite side. The snow was sturdy enough for proper three-ball snowmen, and someone had even brought a carrot for one's nose. The younger boy's regrets at leaving the apartment without his gloves, to say nothing of the plastic saucer sleds, grew more and more outspoken until they transformed from complaints into plans and the excursion detoured for home. Gloves were donned; saucers came out of the deepest corner of the closet. Now the slope to the Pool had bright light raking over the foot of it, as the younger boy covered the whole distance in a single slide, en route to the taller hill on the downstream side. There was enough snow to smooth over the paved path that cut across the hill there, leaving a single downhill run, at the low point of which saucers and toboggans drained inexorably into a clump of little trees. Strollers were parked on the path at the top. A flight of doves crossed on the suddenly blue sky. Sharpening wind more than offset whatever warmth the fully emerged sun supplied, but the younger boy's face was beaded with sweat from his exertions. After one last run, and then another last run, the moment to go home arrived exactly as the sun started to descend behind a building.
SIDE PIECES DEP'T.
Tom Scocca
FOR FLAMING HYDRA, I wrote about watching the Super Bowl as a lapsed NFL fan:
This country seems to have descended into a politics of violence and ignorance—a politics of brutish spectacle—at the very moment its most popular spectator sport has abandoned the thrills of live, direct action. The games, which more and more people are gambling money on, turn on technicalities and interpretations; the referees tell people to sit and wait for permission to feel excited for their team; Donald Trump tells them the excitement is already here, they’re winning more than they’ve ever won, their very bad enemies are losing and losing and begging for mercy.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast.
Tom Scocca
Click on this box to find the Indignity Morning Podcast archive.
TOM SCOCCA
ADVICE DEP'T.
GOT SOMETHING YOU need to justify to yourself, or to the world at large? Other columnists are here to judge you, but The Sophist is here to tell you why you’re right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of sandwiches selected from A Book Of Unusual Recipes: Compiled For The Members Of The Parent-Teacher's Association Of Oakton School, Compiled by Mrs. Vincent M. Reed and Alice Eckert Campbell, Evanston, Illinois, available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
Mock Lobster Sandwich
Boil one-half pound of halibut for fifteen minutes in water enough to cover, adding one teaspoon of vinegar and one teaspoon of salt to the water. When the fish is chilled, chop coarsely and add one tablespoon of canned pimentoes. Moisten with mayonnaise and spread between thin slices of buttered bread.
—Mrs. Sophie Eckert.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
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