President Donald Trump’s border czar Thomas Homan, left, and New York Mayor Adams, right, and others, meeting in New York, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025.
Ed Reed | Office of the Mayor of New York via AP
President Donald Trump‘s border czar implicitly warned New York Mayor Eric Adams during a joint televised interview Friday to follow through on his promise to allow federal immigration authorities into the city’s massive jail complex on Rikers Island.
“If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City, and we won’t be sitting on a couch,” said Trump immigration chief Thomas Homan Friday in a joint interview with Adams on “Fox and Friends.”
“I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?'” Homan said.
Adams chuckled nervously during Homan’s comment, saying only, “We’re going to deliver for the safety of the people of this city.”
Adams’ promise Thursday to sign an executive order that would permit federal authorities to use Rikers came just hours after the stunning resignations of six top Department of Justice prosecutors, who quit rather than carry out the orders of a high-ranking DOJ official in Washington, that they dismiss criminal corruption charges filed against the mayor.
One of those prosecutors, acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, said Adams’ lawyers recently urged Justice Department officials to agree to what amounted to a “quid pro quo” with the mayor.
In exchange for Adams’ bribery case being dropped by federal prosecutors, the mayor would allow the Trump administration to carry out immigration enforcement actions in New York City, Sassoon wrote in a letter to Trump’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi.
Adams and his lawyer, Alex Spiro, deny there is a quid pro quo deal with the DOJ.
Trump on Thursday denied telling the DOJ to dismiss the charges against Adams.
Adams was indicted in September on charges including campaign contribution conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery, which include allegations he accepted $100,000 worth of plane tickets and luxury hotel stays from wealthy Turkish nations.
The order to dismiss the Adams case came from Emil Bove, a former criminal defense lawyer for Trump who now holds a top job at the Justice Department.
Bove issued the directive first to Sassoon, who refused to do it and resigned. Bove then ordered several top DOJ officials in Washington to carry who his demand.
Like Sassoon, they too refused to comply with Bove’s order. As Friday morning, the case against Adams technically remained pending in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
Bove was appointed to a high-ranking post at the DOJ by Trump, after representing the president last year at his criminal hush money trial in New York, which ended in Trump’s conviction.
In her letter Wednesday to the attorney general, Sassoon said that Bove had proposed “dismissing the charges against Adams in return for his assistance in enforcing the federal immigration laws.”
Critics of Bove’s order have warned that by seeking to dismiss the criminal case against Adams without prejudice, meaning that the criminal charges can be re-filed at any time, the DOJ is effectively putting the mayor under its thumb.
If the prospect of a revived criminal case against Adams is constantly hanging over the mayor’s head, his ability to act independently, or refuse to do the president’s bidding, would be severely compromised, they say.
