Eric Adams must be removed as mayor.

Cleaning up the disgusting corruption of American politics must begin in New York City. As NY Governor Kathy Hochul meets with city officials today, she has an historic opportunity to restore justice.

America is under assault, but today, New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City officials have the opportunity to strike back against the revolting foreign corruption that has infested our nation — by removing Eric Adams as mayor of NYC.

Note the painting of Washington in the background. It’s as though old George is pointing to Governor Hochul and saying “come on Kathy, what are you waiting for?”

This assault on America has been ongoing for nearly two decades now, with concerted attacks on our civic discourse, our media, our information ecosystem, our international alliances, our elections, and our elected public officials, of both parties but especially the Republican Party. The malefactors hail from all over the world, in league with collaborators and craven opportunists right here at home — but the largest single source of evil has been from the Kremlin under Vladimir Putin.

We are quite possibly slogging through the worst period of corruption in all of American history — with seemingly limitless foreign money seeping into every corner of American politics and the open, permeable world of digital media that is replacing the TV-dominated media world of the 20th Century.¹

Our elected officials and thus our government institutions are influenced and controlled by shadowy foreign powers — with illegal summits and meetings, under-the-table deals, secret telephone calls, disinformation campaigns, election interference, fake bomb threats, and yes, foreign money flowing directly and indirectly into the hands of our politicians.

Including Eric Adams, according to federal prosecutors. Adams allegedly pocketed over $10 million from NYC taxpayers, to illegally fund his campaign for mayor — by astroturfing donations from Turkey, which then triggered matching funds from NYC’s fund for public financing of campaigns. Not to mention the free travel and other perks Adams personally accepted, per the indictment.

And now Adams stands accused of cutting yet another quid pro quo with another disgustingly corrupt politician from NYC — Donald Trump.

Adams appears to have traded away his policy position on immigration — and the lives and freedom of New Yorkers — so that the Trump administration could get a political win and then order DOJ to withdraw the charges against Adams. But with a catch: the charges are to be withdrawn “without prejudice” as the legal term of art goes, so that they can still be re-filed at a later date, giving Trump a sword of Damocles to dangle over Adams.

Adams has now shown that he cannot be left in office for even one more day.

Every day that he remains as mayor is another day when he can abuse his office and hurt New Yorkers and violate their constitutional rights.

No more. It ends here.

We need to begin the counterattack right now. Today. We need to clean up America, starting in New York.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul is meeting today with top city officials to discuss Adams — and the possibility of removing him, which both the City Council and Hochul each have the power to do.

They should remove Adams, effective immediately.

There is no good reason to hesitate here. The deputy mayors of the city, who truly run NYC on a daily basis, will all be able to do their jobs (four of them have now tendered resignations, but they would surely return to their roles if Adams is removed). There is a clear avenue for succession: under NYC law, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams is next in line and becomes mayor. The City will be fine. More than fine. This is addition by subtraction.

Moreover, while undoubtedly Trump and his cultists would all howl that Hochul and city leaders have committed a coup and thwarted the will of the people, blah blah blah, this is absolute nonsense and should be roundly ignored. The people of the city and the state instituted removal mechanisms for precisely this moment — when there would be a mayor so corrupt and injurious that his continued tenure would threaten public safety and be an affront to justice and any standard of good governance.

Removal is an extraordinary remedy — but this is an extraordinary moment. We must seize this moment and begin recapturing our own system of government, seizing it back from those who have tried to take it away from us.

Removing Adams would not be a coup. The coup is already taking place, all around us, whether the plotters are coming from Russia or Turkey or Egypt. Removing Adams would be a restoration of American democracy and the will of the American people — a restoration of the simple principle that We the People choose our leaders, and they serve us, not the other way around.

Moreover, if Adams is indeed somehow still the choice of the people, he can prove it — by winning back the mayoralty in the elections this year.²

Governor Hochul can thus stand up and serve as the people’s true champion, the one who gave us our city back — and she should then redouble her efforts on this by launching a broader bipartisan investigation into the Adams case and all instances of corruption in city and state politics, with a fully transparent process including public hearings.

And as part of this investigation, if the federal prosecution of Eric Adams does not continue (more on that tomorrow), Hochul should designate Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor to explore state charges against Adams — and to bring him to justice once and for all.

We can bring about a rebirth of freedom in America, right now, even though it may take years of struggles to achieve the victories we seek. And we need to begin those struggles here, in New York, today.

1. The subject of a longer think piece I did last month.

2. Good luck with that, as he has a 27% approval rating currently, with a whopping 69% viewing him unfavorably.