Can Eric Adams Govern Without a Government?

It didn’t take a federal indictment to see that the “governing” part of Eric Adams’ mayoralty is fugazy. But what the indictment and the flurry of investigative activity that surround it punctuate is how very difficult, if not impossible, it will be for the mayor to govern at all going forward. This is, of course, a major issue for the health and welfare of the city and its residents. And it is devoutly to be wished that Adams, when weighing his own course, sees that the central question is not about his personal jeopardy but about whether the government can function well in the current state.

In the last month, the feds have raided the mayor’s official residence at Gracie Mansion, the headquarters of the New York City Police Department, and the homes of two deputy mayors and the mayor’s chief advisor. The feds also seized, pursuant to warrants and subpoenas, the phones of the police commissioner, the two deputy mayors, the chief advisor and the mayor himself (twice). This was not simply some frolic and detour: In each case, a federal judge signed a warrant because he or she was persuaded that those places and items probably held evidence of a crime. That is quite something. 

Government is a good thing, if you can keep it. But along with the battlespeed rate of searches and seizures, resignations of the most senior government officials are occurring at a room-spinning pace that calls into question whether the City can operate in a headless state. A week before the indictment, the mayor’s counsel — responsible for advising mayoral staff on conflicts, among other things — resigned in a chilly and terse letter in which she stated, “I have concluded that I can no longer effectively serve in my position.” Every lawyer knows those words as code for either “you did not take my advice,” or “you lied to me about something important.” Following raids, the mayor’s chief advisor said she would retire in January, the schools chancellor resigned effective in December and the police commissioner stepped down effective immediately. The health commissioner has announced that he will step down as well, leaving the three agencies that account for about a third of the $116 billion budget with interim leadership. 

The drip of grift and graft throughout the administration set the model and the expectations. It would be comical if the consequences to the city were not so devastating. From the beginning, Adams’ friends-and-family plan of appointments seemed ill-advised. The deputy mayor for public safety who had already been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in two previous federal corruption cases. The unsuccessful attempt to place his “parking supervisor” brother in as a top police official with a quarter-of-a-million dollar paycheck. The successful attempt to place an old friend who worked as a $53,000-a-year 911 operator at the highest levels of the Police Department and another close confidant in a $243,000 position at the same time that he was pulling down hundreds of thousands of dollars working for a casino bidding for a city contract. Then there was the mayor’s girlfriend, placed in a $225,000 job, reported as a no-show, in the Department of Education, headed by the brother of the public safety deputy mayor.

The failure to observe the most basic rule of good governance — keeping separate what’s yours and what’s the city’s — came to full flower in what the indictment alleges was an exchange of gifts for government favors. For sure, the mayor is entitled to a presumption of innocence in the criminal case and may yet have his “where do I go to get my reputation back” moment. But the swirling investigative activity and the daily reporting on questionable activity, even if not criminal, has done real damage to the fair functioning of the government.

Long before the indictment, what might be charitably characterized as Adams’ “sloppy conduct” — accepting free dinners, free entry to night clubs and a veritable parade of gifts — loosened the bonds of the possible so that a free-for-all grab for the City’s treasure became an expected way of doing business. (The City’s conflict rules forbid public servants from accepting any gift worth over $50.) As the mayor’s close friend, Tim Pearson, remarked: “People are doing very well on these contracts. I have to get mine. Where are my crumbs?” 

It is a kind of broken windows theory of corruption: Little things pave the way for the big. Now, in the wake of assertions of protection rackets and promotion selling at the Police Department and a private scheme at the Fire Department to expedite inspections, allegations of contracts fixed for personal gain seem to be a daily fixture of the news. Monday, the current Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, who succeeded Adams, told the tale of how the Turkish government approached him offering gold-plated tea sets, free travel and other benefits, just like they had given the last guy. Reynoso laughed incredulously recounting this story and explained how he knew this was way over the line, and of course his counsel advised him to return the tea sets and decline the offers. Which he did.

I have watched the unraveling of government operations over the last year as more than just an observer. I served as a federal prosecutor in the district that is now prosecuting the Adams case. I was the first deputy commissioner in the city’s anti-corruption agency, the same agency that participated in the investigation with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office. I served a governor and a previous New York City mayor overseeing their criminal justice policy. I have some sense of how federal and city investigations can stall government operations.

So, now what? What are the practicalities of governing as federal investigations swirl? 

The first question is, who are you going to call? Quite literally. When phones are seized, it is difficult to know for sure how to reach key decisionmakers. While much can be done in agencies not yet touched by scandal, a lot of decisions require a call to City Hall, which is effectively paralyzed by the investigations. And, of course, the corollary of “who can you call” is “who will listen?”  Will anyone either inside or outside the administration listen to the mayor now? Agency heads? The City Council? The state Legislature? The governor? Federal agencies? The White House? Who is really in charge? Nobody? Everybody?

In the best of times, the pace of government operations is like working with a blowtorch in your face. Getting attention for your particular issue is hard and requires mobilizing the focus and support of top figures at City Hall. But a criminal investigation by its nature is all-consuming. It is simply not credible for the mayor to say: My lawyers will deal with that and I will deal with governing. Why? Because a good part of every day will be spent reviewing the charges in the indictment, reading what will be thousands of pages of “discovery” and, no doubt, gaming what else is ahead, since the U.S. Attorney has been crystal clear that the investigation is continuing. Indeed, the day after the indictment was unsealed, the mayor’s chief advisor was stopped at the airport on return from a vacation abroad and had her phone taken, as her house was being searched.

And there will be other time-consuming “distractions.” Aside from dealing with the real legal jeopardy that any federal indictment poses to his liberty, Adams will, no doubt, be wrestling with the political realities. He will be considering whether he has a route to electoral victory and whether he should resign — for the good of the city, his party and himself. One could imagine that he will be counseled in that decision by many: House Majority Leader Hakeem Jefferies, who may be worried about congressional races, Al Sharpton, who might be concerned about the blowback more generally on the political class, and Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the unfortunate job of determining whether she will remove him, as she is empowered to do.

All of this takes time. In the meantime, much of the second tier of government is also “distracted.” The mayor’s advisors, deputy mayors and commissioners have their own legal jeopardy to attend to. This past weekend, the chancellor and the first deputy mayor, who have been in a relationship for many years, got married. A cynic might ask whether this was to ensure they could not testify against one another, and wonder further whose liberty was most at risk. 

Here are a few important decisions currently swinging in the wind, but there will be many others:

• How will the City retain the many able public servants that keep government going and spur innovation to improve service delivery? And what person of talent and quality — aside from a crisis communications professional — would take a serious job in this maelstrom?
• The City’s jails have been laboring under a federal consent decree entered nine years ago to lessen unconstitutional levels of violence. Since then, violence has skyrocketed beyond those levels, and the federal judge overseeing the decree has directed the city and parties to the suit — including the U.S. Attorney’s Office — to come up with a plan that would install a “receiver” responsible for governing the department. This is a crucial executive function that the City would be ceding, and only the mayor can make the decision about what to do.
• The administration has put forward a bold zoning plan aimed at ameliorating the housing crisis in the city. But it is not done and will require some serious attention by the executive in lobbying the City Council and getting over the final hurdle. How can this signature plan move forward or have credibility with the mayor’s attention elsewhere?
• The City’s $110 billion budget reaches an important milestone in January when typically the mayor delivers a State of the City address along with a budget to support the plans and initiatives. It is a key moment in the creation of plans by the agencies and lobbying of the budget office. But in the end, the budget decisions are the mayor’s alone to make and it requires many days and hours of study and presentation to make the choices. How will this move forward?
• And perhaps standing in as an example of the general infection: What happens when the City’s anti-corruption agency — at the heart of Adams’ indictment and other investigations into his top staff — asks the mayor’s budget office for needed additional funds to continue what is doubtless a time-consuming and expensive set of investigations?

In medieval political theory there is the idea of the King’s Two Bodies. One is his mortal body; the other is the body politic of which he has the care and stewardship and which passes from him to the next monarch. As a leading English legal theorist of the 16th century summarized it: “His Body politic is a Body that cannot be seen or handled, consisting of Policy and Government, and constituted for the Direction of the People, and the management of the public weal.” Adams, in the peculiar verbal tic that marks many of his pronouncements, has said he intends to “reign” over the city, not resign. But a good king tends to the body politic for the benefit of his people despite any infirmities of desire in his natural body. 

Could Adams continue on as mayor and manage a functioning city? Perhaps. But it would effectively require the installation of a Regent to rule in his place — and an all-out effort to persuade the able public servants that remain to stay, and to recruit new dedicated and talented staff to fill the fast-emptying high-level positions in City Hall and the city’s agencies.

It is a lesson for the ages, and for New York City’s leaders in this moment of crisis: What belongs to the city and its people does not belong to you. Every decision — whether to use your personal phone or your office phone, to accept plane upgrades, to award contracts to friends and family, to resign or to continue — must be made with only the well-being of the people and the city you serve in mind.