Kathy Hochul Has an Eric Adams Problem

The person in the least enviable position following the federal indictment of New York City mayor Eric Adams is New York City mayor Eric Adams. The person in the second-least enviable position is New York governor Kathy Hochul.

Hochul, of course, has done nothing wrong. Ordinarily when a big-city mayor gets indicted, the governor has the luxury of either expressing disgust and demanding a resignation (if the mayor is from the other political party) or sitting back and vaguely tut-tutting (if the mayor is from the governor’s own party). It’s not a bad deal for most governors, most of the time: Give a little talk about how corruption is corrosive and we need honest government officials and revel on the moral high ground.

No such luck for Hochul. Because of a dusty old law, she won’t be able to do anything in public without being bombarded with questions about Adams until this whole mess is over. That law, Section 9 of the New York City Charter, is all of two sentences long and not entirely clear: “The mayor may be removed from office by the governor upon charges and after service upon him of a copy of the charges and an opportunity to be heard in his defense. Pending the preparation and disposition of charges, the governor may suspend the mayor for a period not exceeding thirty days.”

Let’s break down what we do and don’t know about the process. The governor can try to remove the mayor. (Okay, got it.) The governor first must notify the mayor of the basis for the potential removal. (This part seems easy; a letter with an attached indictment should do the trick.) The governor has unilateral power to suspend the mayor for up to 30 days while the process plays out. (Also clear.) The mayor gets a chance to respond to the governor. (Now it gets murky. Does the mayor get anything more than a written response? Can he request a hearing or a mini-trial? How long does the mayor have to respond?) And then the governor (probably) decides if the mayor stays or goes. (The law doesn’t specifically say the final decision is up to the governor, but it appears to read that way, and an ancient historical precedent, which we’ll get to in a moment, supports that reading.)

Of course, the big unavoidable question for Hochul is whether she will use this process to remove Adams. The pressure is ratcheted up on Hochul because there are no other release valves. Adams has made clear he won’t resign. Unlike some states, New York doesn’t have a voter-recall option. And there’s no local equivalent of impeachment and removal. Either Hochul gives Adams the hook or else he stays in the job while the criminal saga plays out, potentially for a year or more given the realities of federal court.

Hochul isn’t operating in a complete vacuum. She can look for guidance to the not-so-recent actions of New York’s then-governor, a prepresidential Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Nearly 100 years ago, in 1932, FDR tried to remove Mayor Jimmy Walker, whose bank account had been enhanced by infusions of cash from city contractors. Unlike Adams, Walker hadn’t even been indicted. Nonetheless, after a judge ruled that the governor held final power to determine the mayor’s fate, Walker resigned. The problem for Hochul, it seems, is that Eric Adams is no Jimmy Walker. The current mayor isn’t going anywhere — for the moment.

Of course, Hochul’s concern is less with the legal niceties than her own political standing. Since the Adams indictment dropped last week, the governor has bought herself a bit of time with vague hints and coded pronouncements. She assured the citizens of New York that her top people are cracking the law books. The governor announced helpfully that this is a “very serious matter” and that she will be “deliberative” and “thoughtful.” Earlier this week, Hochul elaborated: “I’m giving the mayor an opportunity now to demonstrate to New Yorkers and to me that we are righting the ship, to instill the confidence that is wavering right now.” Okay, maybe the governor didn’t “elaborate” so much as she “said more words.”

It’s obvious what Hochul is trying to do, and it’s tough to blame her. She’s buying time and hoping something shakes loose. And she’s got her finger raised, and she’s trying to figure out which way the political winds are blowing. Pretty much any politician would do the same.

We often struggle in this scenario, in which a powerful officeholder has been indicted but not yet convicted. In 2023, another leading light of New York politics, Representative George Santos, was indicted for essentially every type of fraud known to humanity — but he remained in office until a damning House Ethics Committee report gave his congressional colleagues enough cover to formally expel him. (Santos later pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft.) Also in 2023, New Jersey senator Robert Menendez was indicted for corruption offenses (the gold bars and the free Mercedes-Benz convertible and the cash in a monogrammed windbreaker). He, too, remained in office until he was tried and convicted this past July. His colleagues afforded him the courtesy of announcing his own resignation at the end of the summer. The Senate is indeed our most august deliberative body, just as the Founders intended.

But it’s not as easy as reading an indictment, feeling a wave of disgust by the charged conduct, and throwing the scoundrel out. We do have this “presumption of innocence” deal in our Constitution. And sometimes it even works out for the accused. Witness the first Menendez case (back in 2017 and 2018), which resulted in jury acquittals on some counts and dismissals by the DOJ on the rest.

Hochul’s best move here is to actually make a move. Be decisive one way or the other. Go with either (1) “I’ve reviewed the indictment, and based on the finding by a grand jury of probable cause that the mayor committed serious federal crimes, I will begin the process of removal,” or (2) “All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty, so I will allow the process to play out to its conclusion before taking action.”

Instead, it appears that Hochul has placed the mayor on a double-secret employee performance improvement plan, based on some behind-closed-doors agreement with unstated parameters. That’s only going to make it worse. Until she takes action, Hochul will face questions about Adams at every press conference and every time she walks to her motorcade and at every county-fair photo op. She can’t escape it. Meanwhile, Adams will continue to run the city at the center of the world from under a cloud.

This article will also appear in the free CAFE Brief newsletter. You can find more analysis of law and politics from Elie Honig, Preet Bharara, Joyce Vance, and other CAFE contributors at cafe.com.