The burgeoning controversy surrounding the Justice Department and New York City Mayor Eric Adams has one quality some of Donald Trump’s first-term scandals lacked: It’s incredibly simple.
If the allegations raised by a former federal prosecutor are correct, the Trump administration effectively told a politician charged with corruption, “We’ll make your legal troubles go away if you play ball with us.” You don’t need a flow chart to understand the story. You don’t need a law degree to appreciate its significance.
At issue is an alleged quid pro quo. The Democratic mayor was indicted; he wanted to get out of his legal mess; and so, according to the allegations, he, his lawyer, and a Trump appointee struck a backroom deal: Adams would help the White House on immigration policy, and in exchange, prosecutors would temporarily put aside the felony charges. And while several key figures in the story have denied any wrongdoing, as controversies go, this one’s quite straightforward.
What’s more, given that the controversy has led at least seven Justice Department officials to resign on principle, refusing to go along with the apparent agreement, it’s tough for partisans to pretend there’s nothing to the underlying story.
It was easy to imagine congressional Republicans offering some kind of underwhelming defense, but as The Hill reported, some of the preliminary GOP lines are unusually weak.
Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) on Sunday defended the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) order for federal prosecutors to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “Well, I think the priority would be immigration,” Zinke said in an interview on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday” when asked to explain why the order to drop charges is not an example of politicization at the DOJ in favor of President Trump.
The Montana Republican — who served as a Cabinet secretary in Trump’s first term — went on to say, “The president looked at it, the priorities. He’s got to work with New York. He found a willing partner.” Zinke concluded, “Obviously, the Trump administration looked at it and said, ‘You know what? What’s more important right now is getting New York back to safety and getting the illegal immigration problem out of New York.’”
So, Zinke’s defense was to effectively admit that the basic claims at the root of the controversy are true. Zinke’s argument, however, was rooted in the idea that Trump and his team were right to cut a backroom deal because undocumented immigrants in New York City are bad.
On the other side of Capitol Hill, the reaction was, by some measures, worse. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said in a statement to HuffPost that the decision to drop the case against Adams was “evidence that President Trump feels Biden’s Justice Department was weaponizing itself against Mayor Adams, just like they used it against Trump.”
This is the worst kind of partisanship: It’s just lazy.
Indeed, the Iowa Republican — who ostensibly has a responsibility to take controversies surrounding federal law enforcement seriously — told overlapping falsehoods as part of his effort to pretend the Adams fiasco is unimportant. Grassley said the Biden-era Justice Department was “weaponized” (it wasn’t), and that prosecutors unfairly targeted Trump (they didn’t). What’s more, Grassley’s pitch was rooted in a baseless conspiracy theory — the Democratic administration was out to punish a Democratic mayor — that’s so wrong that even the Trump administration hasn’t peddled it. Similarly, the GOP senator’s claims have already been contradicted by prosecutors with sterling conservative credentials. In case that weren’t quite enough, both Zinke and Grassley appeared to concede that the president was directly involved in dismissing the charges against Adams, reinforcing the impression that there was direct political interference in the case that was in the hands of prosecutors. Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, added fresh weight to the allegations on Friday morning, appearing on Fox News alongside Adams. “If he doesn’t come through,” Homan said, pointing to the mayor, “I’ll be back in New York City and we won’t be sitting on the couch. I’ll be in his office, up his butt saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’” (Despite referring to an “agreement” with Adams, Homan later said it was “ridiculous” to allege a quid pro quo.) There are, however, lingering questions about whether the judge in Adams’ case will accept the Justice Department’s motion to drop the charges. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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