New York Mayor Eric Adams urged the public to “let the process play out” after New York Attorney General Letitia James‘s indictment.
Adams also pointed to his own prosecution, which he felt was political, in relating to James’s recent fraud indictment.
“I’m going to do the same thing to her what I ask of everyone when I was going through my situation,” Adams said, “let the process play out.”
Adams relayed that he felt the weight of public attacks and smears against him.
“People attacked me, they called me names, they destroyed an impeccable record in the city,” he added. “Folks, I’ve been doing this for 40 years. I had 40 years of delivering for the people of the city of New York. And within months, my entire life was destroyed.”
President Donald Trump has been accused of weaponizing the Justice Department against James.
He reportedly accidentally posted instructions to Attorney General Pam Bondi to indict James and others. “What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia???” he wrote.
“They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,” he claimed, adding that “we can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.”
James called the charges against her, bank fraud and false statement charges, “baseless” and “nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponization of our justice system.”
Adams did not say whether the charges amounted to weaponization when asked, instead referring to his own corruption case, which the Trump administration dropped.
“Do you feel they weaponized me? Of course,” he said. “You asked me about others, but I remember how you covered me. … Don’t start asking me about what do I think about what’s going on now.”
“I want to know, what did y’all think about when my life was destroyed in this city? And I wish I had a mic so I could drop it right now,” he concluded, walking away.
NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL LETITIA JAMES INDICTED ON BANK FRAUD CHARGE
Adams often mirrored Trump’s weaponization allegations during the controversy about the mayor’s indictment last year. Rumors fluttered that he was growing closer to the president so he could find an exit ramp away from his criminal charges.
“As I said all along, this case never should have been brought, and I did nothing wrong,” he said in April when his case was dropped. The federal government pursued the indictment aggressively against Adams during the Biden administration, but, under Trump, it claimed that the case was an example of “political weaponization.”