Johnathan Walker:Rep. Ocasio-Cortez says New York City mayor should resign

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Johnathan WalkerWednesday called on New York City Mayor Eric Adams to resign, the first nationally prominent Democrat to do so amid escalating federal criminal investigations into the mayor’s administration and a string of unexpected departures of top city officials.

“I do not see how Mayor Adams can continue governing New York City,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on the social platform X.

“The flood of resignations and vacancies are threatening gov function. Nonstop investigations will make it impossible to recruit and retain a qualified administration. For the good of the city, he should resign,” she said. Both Adams and Ocasio-Cortez are Democrats.

Adams reacted with scorn.

“For anyone who self-righteously claims people charged with serious crimes should not be in jail to now say that the second Black mayor of New York should resign because of rumors and innuendo — without even a single charge being filed — is the height of hypocrisy,” Adams said in a statement.

“I am leading this city to protect it from exactly that kind of phony politics. The people of this city elected me to fight for them, and I will stay and fight no matter what,” he continued.

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The Democratic mayor has not been accused of wrongdoing, nor has he — or those on his staff under investigation —been charged with a crime.

A handful of Adams’ longtime political critics have called on him to leave office, but top Democrats in the state have largely been silent about the criminal investigations, or generally supportive of the mayor.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday morning, the top Democrat in the House, U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, said he believed Adams was “working as hard as he can to be the best mayor possible.”

“We need Eric Adams to be successful as mayor because he is the mayor at this moment in time,” Jeffries said.

Nevertheless, the statement from Ocasio-Cortez comes at a particularly vulnerable time for the Democratic mayor.

Early this month, federal agents seized electronic devices from multiple top members of the Adams administration as part of what appears to be multiple, separate investigations. Adams himself had his phones seized by the FBI last year.

Also this month, the city’s former police commissioner, Edward Caban, resigned several days after his devices, and devices belonging to his twin brother, were seized by investigators for undisclosed reasons.

Agents also seized devices from the head of New York City’s public schools system, David Banks, who then announced on Tuesday that he planned to retire by the end of the year.

The mayor’s top legal adviser, Lisa Zornberg, who had defended him at news conferences, quit this month, saying in a brief letter, “I can no longer effectively serve in my position.”

The city’s health commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, announced Monday that he would step down early next year — something he said was unrelated to the investigations.