Wave of Resignations Plunges Adams Administration Into Crisis Again

Four months ago, the administration of Mayor Eric Adams seemed to be in an irreversible state of crisis. Two of his deputy mayors and his police commissioner had resigned. His five-count federal indictment was still very much in play.

Mr. Adams soldiered on. He hired well-regarded replacements, eschewing his often-tapped pool of loyalists. He hired a fiery criminal defense lawyer and began to openly court President Trump as an ally.

The moves seemed to pay off. Mr. Adams’s new team, led by the first deputy mayor, Maria Torres-Springer, won admiration for keeping New York City running; the mayor seemed to score an even bigger victory when the Justice Department moved to drop the case against him.

But Mr. Adams’s seeming legal triumph has brought him into a deeper political crisis.

The prosecutor overseeing the mayor’s case accused Mr. Adams late last week of agreeing to a quid pro quo with Trump administration officials. In exchange for leniency in the criminal case, she said, the mayor would help the president with immigration enforcement.

The suggestion that Mr. Adams would do Mr. Trump’s bidding, which the mayor has denied, brought widespread condemnation and calls for him to step down or for Gov. Kathy Hochul to remove him. Ms. Hochul, a Democrat who has been an ally to the mayor, released a statement late Monday saying that she would meet with elected officials on Tuesday to discuss the mayor’s future and that the allegations against him were “troubling and cannot be ignored.”

The latest blows came on Monday, when Ms. Torres-Springer and three other deputy mayors said they would be resigning. They did not directly cite the mayor’s cooperation with the Trump administration but alluded to “the extraordinary events of the last few weeks.”

The officials were respected government veterans who served as the backbone of the administration, leading a vast bureaucracy of roughly 300,000 city workers and key initiatives to build urgently needed housing and to improve public safety.

“This is an unmitigated disaster,” said Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president. “Each one of these leaders is a seasoned, talented professional. Their loss will leave New York City government in a truly precarious position.”

Their departures accelerated calls for Mr. Adams to quit or be forced out. They also raised alarm over who was running the city and whether Mr. Adams could attract qualified candidates given the chaos surrounding him and his re-election campaign.

Lincoln Restler, a City Council member from Brooklyn, said that he was confident that city workers would make sure the trash was picked up and schools operated but that it would be impossible to make “any decision of consequence in city government.”

“For many city workers, there was solace in knowing that longtime government experts like Maria were there to steady this ship and to avoid the worst dysfunction and excess and corruption of Eric Adams and his cronies,” he said. “Without that safety net, it’s scary.”

Mr. Adams, a Democrat, has insisted that he will not step down and that he will run for re-election in the June primary. But his path forward is becoming increasingly difficult.

Brad Lander, the city comptroller who is also running for mayor, called for Mr. Adams to release a “detailed contingency plan” outlining how he would manage the city. Without such a plan, Mr. Lander said, he will convene a committee to remove Mr. Adams on the basis of his inability to govern.

The resignations, he said, would create an “unprecedented leadership vacuum at the highest levels of city government and wreak havoc on the city’s ability to deliver essential services to New Yorkers.”

Mr. Adams, the city’s second Black mayor, is also facing defections from the Black political establishment. On Saturday, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the State Senate majority leader, joined a chorus of Black leaders calling for the mayor’s resignation.

Earlier on Saturday, Carl McCall, a Black elder statesman and a former state comptroller, went public with an open letter urging former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to run for mayor. The endorsement was notable because of the men’s former rivalry: Their competition for the 2002 Democratic nomination for governor, which Mr. McCall won, nearly ended Mr. Cuomo’s political career.

Mr. McCall did not mention Mr. Adams by name, although he alluded to the mayor’s supposed quid pro quo.

“New York cannot be represented by someone whose loyalty to the city is compromised,” Mr. McCall wrote.

There is no parallel in modern New York City history to the federal investigations into the mayor and his inner circle and the new wave of resignations. The last broad municipal scandal was in 1986 under Mayor Edward I. Koch, when the leaders of three city agencies were indicted. In 1979, Mr. Koch demoted two of his seven deputy mayors and fired three others in a major shake-up.

Only two mayors have resigned, both after corruption scandals: Jimmy Walker in 1932 and William O’Dwyer in 1950.

The pending resignations are also a major setback for the mayor’s agenda. Mr. Adams has been working to address concerns over public safety, especially after high-profile violent incidents on the subway. His administration has moved to overhaul trash collection and to build housing after the approval of an ambitious rezoning proposal known as the City of Yes, championed by Ms. Torres-Springer.

The expected departure of Chauncey Parker, the deputy mayor for public safety, is a blow to the mayor’s immigration plans. Mr. Parker has been deeply involved in decisions about the city’s role in Mr. Trump’s deportation efforts and attended a meeting last week with Mr. Adams and Thomas Homan, the Trump border czar.

Mr. Parker also worked closely with Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, who made clear last week that the Police Department would not cooperate with federal authorities on civil immigration enforcement.

“Tisch walks on water — I’m confident she’ll keep doing a great job while retaining her independence,” said Shaun Abreu, a City Council member from Manhattan who worked with Ms. Tisch on the city’s trash overhaul.

Alicia Glen, who was a deputy mayor for housing and economic development under Mayor Bill de Blasio, said that morale would suffer once again.

“Senior managers and political appointees who joined the administration to enact innovative programs, tackle systemic problems and do big, transformational projects are going to be stymied and frustrated,” she said.

Even Mr. de Blasio, who has defended Mr. Adams in recent days and called the corruption charges against him flimsy, made clear on Monday in an interview on CNN that Mr. Adams was running out of time to save his job. Mr. de Blasio said that it was a mistake for Mr. Adams to join Mr. Homan for a friendly interview on Fox News.

Mr. de Blasio called the new resignations “deeply troubling” and urged Mr. Adams to reassure New Yorkers that he was not beholden to Mr. Trump.

“His entire political career, his time as mayor — everything comes down to this week,” he said. “He has to convince the people of New York City right now that he will take on Donald Trump when Donald Trump does something that hurts New York City.”