New York Mayor Eric Adams is Arraigned

Another day, another pol hauled into court

New York Mayor Eric Adams this week was indicted on five federal charges, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, solicit foreign contributions, and bribery. Whether the case is a long-time coming or a concatenation put together by his political enemies - or just people who want his job, of which there are many - is as yet unknown. What is known is that Adams just pleaded “Not Guilty” at his arraignment at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in downtown Manhattan.

Having been told the arraignment would be at noon, I got to the courthouse at 10:30, only to find out from an AP reporter that Adams had arrived at 9:15.

“And I got here at 8:30,” said another reporter, adding that he was a “glutton for punishment.”

Unlike Trump’s trial earlier this year, the scene today was un-frenzied, no beefy pick-up trucks driven from Long Island and blasting “Proud to Be An American,” no pussy-eared ladies with dollar-bill pompoms. People were energized for and against Trump then (shocking!) and the atmosphere was party-on.

I cannot say the same about the crowd today, four dozen reporters jockeying for position and making small talk and betraying the overall dullness of people not having had enough coffee. There was also no one to interview, the citizens of New York evidently not being, or not yet being, as het up about the mayor’s indictment as one might expect, or not so het up that they decided to show up. Aside from the screaming man who apparently arrives at the courthouse each morning with a cloth banner bearing choice words for former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg - words no one can read because the banner appears to be about 16-feet long and sits in a puddle on the sidewalk - there were no New Yorkers yelling condemnation or support, no one to ask whether they thought Adams had a messiah complex coupled with the insecure man’s demand for respect; no one to comment on the tweet from City Comptroller Brad Lander - who in July announced his intention to run for mayor - calling for Adams to step down, or Trump maybe/kinda throwing Adams a bone by blaming the indictment on the “dirty players” in the DOJ.

I talked to a cop instead, about the courthouse eco-system, the daily screaming man and the women holding the hems of their bridal gowns and the group of pre-school kids crossing the street and the two grooms kissing on the state courthouse steps.

“New York in a nutshell,” the cop said.

Oh but wait, there was someone conducting interviews, two guys actually, young white dudes who looked as though they might have taken the jitney in from the Hamptons or blown a joint for breakfast or both, but anyway, they wanted to talk, one held a mic in the shape of a long droopy breadstick in my face and asked, lazy-like, whether I thought what was going on was racist.

Wait what?

“You know, heh,” he said, sort of Beavis and Butthead by way of Choate Rosemary Hall. “I mean he’s the second black guy to be indicted and…”

His friend was smiling as he filmed, the smoke from his hand-roll curling into one eye; they just wanted to extend brat summer into bratty fall, which would have been more fun if I would step into the trap, but alas; they were so young and so douchey I just wanted to pat them on the head. Instead, I told them Adams might have enemies due to the migrant crisis, that we’d have to see if the indictments held…

“Anyone want a picture of Liev Schreiber, he’s across the street,” said a reporter. Instead I thought about Michael Powell’s piece from March, “How It All Went Wrong for Eric Adams” and how incisively it charted how and why Adams finds himself where he is in September. I clicked on “The Jews Should Stand With Eric Adams,” which Liel Leibowitz published today, and noted there were no Jews nor anyone else standing at the courthouse with Adams. Had we become inured to those we’d elected being hauled before judges? Did the facts matter? Who was the spectacle for?

“Press into the press pen,” a NYPD officer ordered, at which we dutifully crammed behind the barriers and waited some more, waited until 12:43pm, when Adams exited behind his attorney Alex Spiro, who said a few things barely anyone could hear, and not merely because the douche-bros were yelling, “FREE ERIC! FREE DIDDY!” and “WE LOVE YOU ERIC! YOU CAN SLEEP WITH MY GIRLFRIEND ANYTIME!” followed by a lone cry of, “Lock him up!”, the after-dinner mint for all occasions.

And then it was over, with press people asking, “Could you hear what he said?” and everyone saying they hadn’t, we knew only that the judge had told Adams he could speak with no one about the case, and that his lawyer said they would be filing a motion to dismiss because the mayor had done nothing wrong. “They’ve implied… that people ought to be disappointed in him. It’s not him doing this,” Alex Spiro said. “It’s the other government that everybody should be disappointed in.”

The other government, a balm no one asked for and which might prove lube-y enough to dislodge Adams from his current predicament. Stay tuned.