CNN’s Dana Bash pressed Donald Trump’s ‘border czar’ Tom Homan over whether the Department of Justice offered to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for assistance with deportation efforts.
Last week, Trump’s DOJ ordered prosecutors in New York to drop their criminal case against Adams. More than half a dozen senior Justice Department officials, including Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, have chosen to resign instead of complying with the order.
On Sunday, Bash noted the Adams has been more willing to work with the Trump administration to execute their mass deportation plans after the charges were dropped.
“I just want to ask directly. You met on Thursday with the New York mayor and he announced then that he would give Ice agents access to the prison on Rikers Island. You called that a game-changer,” Bash said. “A few days before Adams made that announcement, the Justice Department instructed prosecutors to drop federal corruption charges against him. It sounds like the DOJ dropped the case against Adams, and in exchange, he let you into Rikers. Is that what happened?”
“No, I think that’s ridiculous,” Homan said, adding that he met with Adams “a couple months ago” to discuss the Rikers Island collaboration and “about how we can collaborate on public safety threats and finding the missing children that can’t be found after they are released to the sponsors.”
Bash noted that Homan said at the time that he left the meeting with Adams “really unsatisfied.”
“What changed between then and now other than the Department of Justice dropping the case against Adams,” Bash pressed.
“I really don’t think it had anything to do with whatever’s going on in the Justice Department,” Homan responded. “We never talked about that, it’s kind of out of my lane.”
Bash conceded that Homan does not work in the Justice Department but the sequence of events seems off.
“Just as somebody who is in law enforcement, you call yourself a cop, just looking at the series of events, sir, the fact that you didn’t get what you wanted, you came away not sure why he wasn’t doing what you wanted him to do, particularly with opening Rikers. The Department of Justice gets rid of the charges against him, and then poof he agrees.”
Homan doubled down, dismissing the idea of a quid pro quo, telling Bash, “I just want him to help me with the public safety threats and leave immigration enforcement to us. So it was a great meeting.”
“Just the actions following up on that meeting were slow to happen,” he continued. “That’s why I requested a second meeting to find out what more do we need to do to get some of this stuff in place. So, I just think, you know, people are making a lot about nothing.”
