Dozens of city government employees lost access to view Mayor Adams’ detailed schedules earlier this month, sources tell the Daily News.
Besides his public daily schedules, which list press conferences and other events, the mayor keeps detailed internal calendars with details on private meetings and appointments. Typically, dozens of staffers in the mayor’s office are able to access those calendar entries for planning purposes.
But two city officials with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said access to the detailed schedule entries was cut off on Feb. 6 for dozens of junior and mid-level staffers.
It’s unclear why Adams’ office peeled back access or who’s still able to view the internal calendars.
The access was limited as conversations were underway between Adams’ legal team and President Trump’s Department of Justice about dropping his corruption indictment. Several days after the access cutoff, the DOJ took the highly controversial step of moving to drop the case.
Spokespeople for Adams didn’t return requests for comment.
On the day the schedule access was restricted, Adams traveled to Washington, D.C. to attend a National Prayer Day breakfast where Trump delivered remarks.
Mark Burns, a controversial South Carolina pastor close with Trump, wrote on Instagram the day of the breakfast that Adams was his guest to the event, an invitation confirmed by the mayor’s office.
Also at the time, Adams’ office said Tiffany Raspberry, the mayor’s intergovernmental affairs director, was trying to set up meetings between Adams and Trump administration officials while he was in Washington, D.C.
On Feb. 10, Trump’s Justice Department sent an extraordinary memo to the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office directing it to dismiss the indictment charging Adams with taking bribes and illegal campaign cash, mostly from Turkish government officials, in exchange for political favors.
The memo included a highly unusual caveat saying the DOJ should review Adams’ case for re-prosecution after November’s mayoral election. It also said the DOJ wants to drop Adams’ case so he can more easily help enforce Trump’s hardline efforts to deport undocumented immigrants residing in New York.
The memo has touched off a crisis at the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and in Adams’ administration.
The office’s acting head, interim U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, and a top prosecutor in her office resigned in protest, saying they couldn’t act on the Trump DOJ’s dismissal request due to concerns they would violate rules against letting political issues influence prosecutions. Trump’s DOJ leaders in Washington, D.C. then took control of the case and filed a motion to dismiss Friday night that is pending approval from Manhattan Federal Court Judge Dale Ho.
Four of Adams’ deputy mayors, meantime, submitted resignations this week over concerns about how the case dismissal could impact his ability to govern independently.
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