New York City Mayor Eric Adams surrendered to federal authorities one day after a 57-page federal indictment was unsealed, accusing the Democrat of bribery, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national. Adams has denied any wrongdoing and is expected to plead not guilty.

But his legal troubles are not Adams’ only problem. There’s also a political dimension to his mess, as prominent members of his party call on the mayor to resign. The Washington Post reported:

A growing number of New York Democrats are calling on Mayor Eric Adams (D) to resign, broadly stating that his federal criminal indictment will hinder his ability to run the city. … New York Democrats in positions of leadership have declined to call on Adams to step down, instead acknowledging that the charges against him are serious but arguing for the presumption of innocence. However, several other elected officials, including members of Congress, have called on the mayor to resign.

As Adams’ Democratic support quickly evaporated, the public saw a case study in partisan asymmetry unfold in real time.

Indeed, no prominent voices in Democratic politics — except for Adams himself — responded to the New York City mayor’s indictment with conspiracy theories. They didn’t talk about “election interference.” Democrats didn’t say that federal prosecutors should be “defunded.” The party didn’t entertain the idea that evidence might’ve been “planted.”

No one in the party accused the Justice Department of having been “weaponized.” Democrats also didn’t issue weird fundraising letters or whine about George Soros.

Instead, Democrats responded to Adams’ indictment the way you’d expect members of a normal, mature, and responsible political party to respond: Many called for the mayor to resign, while others acknowledged the seriousness of the allegations.

In fact, in an odd twist, the Adams’ indictment did generate weird conspiracy theories, just not from his own party.

Donald Trump, for example, argued — in public and in apparent seriousness — that federal prosecutors charged the mayor, not because of evidence of corruption, but because of Adams’ position on immigration policy. Some Fox News hosts and assorted far-right personalities — including conspiratorial billionaire Elon Musk — pushed a similar line. (The defendant himself also expressed support for the same idea.)

In other words, some leading voices on the right want Americans to believe that a Democratic administration indicted a prominent Democratic mayor — with 40 days left in the election cycle — as part of a plot to punish Adams for taking a conservative line on immigration policy months ago.

Putting aside the fact that there’s literally no evidence to substantiate such a weird idea, the principal problem with these bonkers assertions is that the indictment is now publicly available, and it’s filled with highly credible allegations of serious crimes.

If the indictment were flimsy, and the charges were based on very little, the conspiracy theorists’ complaints might be marginally more believable. But I’d encourage those on the right peddling such nonsense to get a copy of the indictment and actually read the darned thing.

As a Washington Post analysis summarized, “The document outlines schemes that appear brazen. It suggests at least some knowledge on the part of Adams and an aide that what was being undertaken was not exactly on the up-and-up. And some episodes detailed came years before Adams’s comments alienated some Democrats.”

These details probably won’t matter to Trump and his allies, but they should matter to those who take reality seriously.