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Eric Adams shows that Democrats are the real party of sleaze

The New York mayor’s shocking indictment is just the latest scandal to hit blue-state leaders

The past few years might be described as the best of times for big city Democratic mayors – but the worst of times for many of the big cities they’re tasked with actually running. Case in point: New York, America’s largest city, where Mayor Eric Adams now finds himself embroiled in the type of unsavoury corruption allegations more typical of the semi-democratic autocrats accused of possibly corrupting him.
The case against Adams is dirty and damning. Yesterday, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams revealed the contents of a Federal indictment that accuses Adams of everything from enjoying nearly $125,000 in ill-supplied luxuries to illegally obtaining some $10 million in campaign financing. 
The Adams saga features a cast of supporting characters as random as they are disreputable: From disgraced boxer Mike Tyson, with whom Adams once associated despite the former’s criminal convictions, to Turkey’s controversial leader Tayyip Erdogan – whom Adams allegedly tried to appease by pressuring city fire officials to approve the opening of a new Turkish consulate despite its inadequate safety measures.
Adams has vowed to defend his good name and remain in office – insisting he’s under attack for refusing to play ball with the Biden Administration’s efforts to flood New York with illegal migrants. There’s truth behind this: More than 210,000 migrants have arrived since 2022, costing the city nearly $5 billion – a figure Adams himself believes could double by 2025. “This issue will destroy New York,” said Adams in August, in one of his many barbs directed at the White House, before adding that New York was “getting no support [from Washington for] this national crisis.”
Last evening Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump, himself no stranger to federal indictments, echoed Adam’s claims of federal lawfare, saying at a Trump Tower press conference, “I watched about a year ago when he talked about how the illegal migrants are hurting our city and the federal government should pay us… and I said ‘you know what, he’ll be indicted within the year’.”
Despite the unsolicited Trump support,  this week’s indictment follows months of similar corruption charges against nearly a dozen in Adams’ Administration. Which means that even if the Mayor somehow emerges with his job intact, his City Hall – weakened and understaffed – is likely compromised beyond repair.
New York may be the highest-profile progressive-led city disgraced by lawless leadership, but it’s certainly not alone. Indeed, nearly every major American city is now being run from the left, if not far-left. Most of these mayors, when elected, were heralded as overdue or transformative. 
Almost all of these mayors have also succumbed to either malfeasance, mismanagement, or both – often with sizable body counts attached. In Philadelphia, for instance, recently released campaign finance reports reveal that new Mayor Cherelle L. Parker paid more than $132,000 to a consulting firm whose founder was convicted of stealing campaign funds. The amount is modest, compared to Adams’ alleged numbers, but suggests the same type of worrisome inner circle that now sees Adams fighting to keep his job. Like New York, Philadelphia is also under siege from a wave of resource-draining undesirables – in this case, encampments of zombie-like addicts hooked on “tranq”, a powerful animal tranquiliser mixed with fentanyl.
Crime, more than anything, has defined big-city America – and its city halls – since the arrival of the pandemic. In Los Angeles, for instance, shoplifting has surged 133 per cent since the end of 2020, while crimes on the city’s subway system were up 65 per cent for the first three months of this year. Despite a decline in violent crime since 2023, Mayor Karen Bass’s own residence was burglarised in late April.
In New York itself, some violent crime levels may have declined this year, but the majority of Adams’ tenure has been marked by a surge in serious crimes, including record number of assaults – even as he tried to claim his war on crime is working. And this was before the arrival of the thousands of pro-Palestine protesters who have taken over much of the city since Hamas’ attack on Israel nearly a year ago.  
Many, of course, have been arrested, but Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged almost none of them with an actual crime. And so many of them have returned to the streets – including a particularly rowdy crowd last evening, making the most of both Adams’ sudden lame-duck status and the arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to town.
Bragg’s laissez-faire tactics actually stand in contrast with Mayor Adams’ more heavy-handed approach to law-and-order, reflecting his past life as a captain in the NYPD. Should Adams resign, however, his interim replacement – New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams – could truly turn City Hall left.
Williams, an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez associate and #blacklivesmatter activist, has often clashed with Adams over efforts at police reform. Like at the White House – where an improbable lefty upstart ousted a centrist, establishment stalwart – the prospect of the relatively moderate Adams being replaced with a radical like Williams is leaving some City Hall watchers rooting for Adams’ survival, much like many former liberals are now rooting for Trump.
True, Kamala Harris has never faced arrest or indictment like Eric Adams. But she – like Jumaane Williams – represents a great unknown at a moment where Americans are crying out for stability. 

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