NY senator who served as Adams’ top lawyer is ‘hypocrite’ for calling on mayor to resign: sources
A state senator who was legal adviser to Eric Adams when he allegedly accepted lavish trips and other gifts from Turkish nationals is a “hypocrite” for now demanding Hizzoner step down, sources close to the mayor told The Post.
Sen. Andrew Gounardes, (D-Brooklyn), worked as Adams’ general counsel and senior policy adviser from 2014 through 2019, when Adams was Brooklyn borough president.
Gounardes put out a statement Thursday — mere hours after the 57-page indictment for federal bribery and fraud charges was unsealed — insisting, “Mayor Adams must step down.”
“No mayor can serve the people of this great city well while facing federal prosecution,” he wrote. “The immense responsibility of governing this city demands an unrelenting focus free from distraction.”
Sources close to Adams ripped Gounardes, saying as general counsel he should’ve advised Adams not to accept the trips and other perks if he felt there was an appearance of impropriety.
“It’s the height of hypocrisy for his former counsel at Borough Hall, who was charged with ensuring his activity was legal, to then call on him to resign for that same activity now being questioned by the federal government,” an Adams source told The Post.
Another source also called Gounardes a “hypocrite,” comparing his remarks to “walking on [Adams’] f-ing grave.”
“He was general counsel when he was taking all the trips in question. He signed off on them, and now he’s calling for his resignation,” said the source.
“That really pisses me off.”
Gounardes said he “won’t respond” to remarks by “unnamed sources.”
A source close to the senator insisted his Borough Hall duties “didn’t include approving Adams’ foreign trips” because that fell to Adams’ then-special counsel Ama Dwimoh.
Dwimoh accompanied Adams on his first trip to Turkey as borough president in August 2015 with the Turks picking up the $7,500 tab, The Post reported then.
Unlike later trips to Turkey, Hizzoner secured needed approvals and properly documented this trip and another later that December on mandatory financial disclosure forms, the indictment says.
Adams has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, saying he’ll fight the criminal charges and won’t step down.
