NEW YORK — Critics are questioning the timing of the Biden Department of Justice’s investigation into New York City Mayor Eric Adams following the mayor’s criticism of the Biden-Harris administration’s immigration policies.
Republicans see the indictment of Adams as fitting a pattern of political lawfare against opponents of the Democratic Party. Adams himself appeared to blame the indictment on his willingness to cross the Democratic Party with criticism of the border crisis, calling himself a “target” of the DOJ on Wednesday.
The timeline of Adams’s legal troubles has also drawn parallels to those of Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), who similarly faced a federal investigation after slamming the Biden-Harris administration over immigration. The DOJ also secured a conviction this year against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who, similar to Cuellar and Adams, spoke out against the Biden-Harris administration before his indictment, particularly on the administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Both men face serious corruption allegations that appear to be backed by strong evidence.
But the indictment of Adams comes against the backdrop of a DOJ that has wielded particularly aggressive law enforcement against some of the Democrats’ ideological and political enemies, such as former president Donald Trump, anti-abortion advocates, and Jan. 6 rioters.
“It is interesting that most of these charges are eight years old. Why weren’t they prosecuted and done then? Because the Democrats needed to have him win an election,” Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) said Thursday. “Now they don’t want their guy in office. Because why? He stood up to President Biden.”
Adams drew the ire of some fellow Democrats when he began speaking out last year against the Biden-Harris administration’s immigration policies amid a massive influx of migrants to New York City.
The Democratic mayor accused President Joe Biden of abandoning the city as it struggled to manage the consequences of the Biden-Harris border crisis. Adams was among the first prominent Democrats to criticize the Biden-Harris administration for its handling of immigration. His criticism shined a spotlight on a problem that had remained a sole Republican complaint for years, and it helped create the bipartisan scrutiny of immigration that has turned the matter into one of voters’ top concerns this election.
For that, Adams became a target for the Biden-Harris administration, according to some Republican critics.
“Eric Adams did his job by daring to put New Yorkers first, in the face of Biden and Kamala’s migrant invasion,” Mike Davis, a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, told the Washington Examiner. “So Eric Adams now faces Biden and Kamala’s politicized and weaponized Justice Department.”
The DOJ unsealed an indictment Thursday that charged Adams with bribery, fraud, and soliciting donations from a foreign national. Speaking out about the five charges against him, Adams said he would request a speedy trial, maintaining his innocence.
“New Yorkers know my story. They know where I come from. I have been fighting injustice my entire life,” Adams said.
Democrats pointed to Adams’s indictment as evidence that the DOJ is not exclusively targeting Trump and other Republicans.
“The Right can’t have it both ways,” Democratic strategist Jon Reinish told the Washington Examiner. “[Biden] can’t both be a stumbling, senile, incompetent grandpa or great grandpa, while at the same time this, you know, extraordinarily powerful evil genius who’s controlling everything, like guys, which is it? Make a decision.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed questions about a politicized indictment Thursday, saying, “The DOJ is handling this case independently. I’m not going to go beyond that.”
But Republican critics have raised concerns about the timing of the criminal investigation into Adams and his inner circle, which appeared to begin around the time his immigration criticism generated national headlines.
Shortly after the federal investigation into Adams began in November, pro-Trump Rep. Brandon Williams (R-NY) suggested the timing was an “interest” of his in light of the mayor’s commentary at the time about Biden’s immigration policies.
But Williams told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that he believes Adams should resign. Adams has made clear he has no plans to so.
Other Republican media commentators connected Adams’s defiance of Democrats and his indictment more closely.
This was when NYC’s Eric Adams made himself a target. The Biden administration was furious at him for criticizing the illegal immigrant mess their border policies created. The raids on his staff came soon thereafter. https://t.co/VxdimZTBB0
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) September 26, 2024
“Reminder: The Eric Adams investigation appeared to begin in earnest after he criticized the Biden administration for their handling of illegal immigration,” Republican radio host Clay Travis posted to X on Wednesday evening.
Republicans who say the DOJ operates a two-tiered system of justice have pointed to investigations of Democratic allies that yielded comparatively minor results, such as a yearslong investigation into first son Hunter Biden that saw him escape any charges for well-documented work he performed for foreign entities without registering as a foreign lobbyist.
Andrew Cherkasky, a New York-based lawyer and former federal prosecutor, told the Washington Examiner that “two things can be true at once” about Adams’s criminal case.
“It can be true that he potentially violated the law, as indicated in the indictment, and it can be true that the Democratic Party is unfairly targeting him and have ostracized him as a result of his criticism of the of the terrible immigration crisis that our country is in that is caused obviously and apparently by the agenda of the Left,” Cherkasky said. “And so he certainly, I think, has a valid complaint that his fellow Democrats are targeting him.”
Cherkasky noted, however, that federal investigators appeared to have collected substantial evidence against the New York City mayor.
Cuellar, another Democrat who faced charges after speaking out against the Biden-Harris administration, also raised concerns about being targeted by the DOJ.
In June, Cuellar said that he “certainly question[s] the motives” of the DOJ choosing to raid his home on the eve of a tough primary race in his district in 2022 in which Democrats had the chance to send a more left-wing member to Congress in his stead. In addition to his immigration criticism, Cuellar has also crossed the Democrats’ abortion orthodoxies with his anti-abortion stance.
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Trump came to Cuellar’s defense in May, accusing the DOJ of going after the Texas Democrat for political reasons.
“Biden just Indicted Henry Cuellar because the Respected Democrat Congressman wouldn’t play Crooked Joe’s Open Border game,” Trump posted on Truth Social at the time. “He was for Border Control, so they said, ‘Let’s use the FBI and DOJ to take him out!’ This is the way they operate.