Hochul to Meet With City Leaders to Discuss the ‘Path Forward’ for Mayor

Gov. Kathy Hochul raised the prospect of removing Mayor Eric Adams from office and announced plans to meet on Tuesday with “key leaders” in Manhattan to discuss “the path forward, with the goal of ensuring stability for the City of New York.”

“Overturning the will of the voters is a serious step that should not be taken lightly,” Ms. Hochul said in a statement late Monday. “That said, the alleged conduct at City Hall that has been reported over the past two weeks is troubling and cannot be ignored.”

The governor was referring to comments from the federal prosecutor in Mr. Adams’s criminal case that the mayor’s lawyers had offered the White House a “quid pro quo” — helping President Trump’s immigration crackdown in return for dropping the charges. Her comments followed the resignations of four of Mr. Adams’s deputy mayors, including his second-in-command, amid criticism that the mayor has put his own interests above those of New Yorkers.

Last week, after months of overtures by Mr. Adams to Mr. Trump, the Justice Department moved to drop the corruption case against the mayor, arguing that it was hindering his ability to cooperate with the president’s crackdown on illegal immigration. (The prosecutor who alleged a quid pro quo resigned rather than withdraw the charges.)

On Monday night, Ms. Hochul, a fellow Democrat who has the power to remove the mayor under the State Constitution, said that the resignations in his cabinet prompted “serious questions about the long-term future of this mayoral administration.”

Calls for the mayor to resign are growing louder and more numerous, with the City Council speaker, Adrienne Adams, who has no relation to the mayor, writing on Monday that the mayor has “lost the confidence and trust of his own staff, his colleagues in government and New Yorkers.”