There has never been a mayor like Eric Adams in the modern history of New York City—that much, deep into his first and perhaps only term, is clear enough.

During his three years in office, Adams has appointed three different police commissioners. His first Department of Buildings commissioner was indicted on corruption charges. Federal prosecutors are currently investigating whether Adams and his campaign conspired with the Turkish government to collect illegal foreign donations, and whether his second police commissioner, Edward Caban, was tied to a possible extortion ring run by Caban’s twin brother. Caban was forced to resign once FBI agents seized his mobile phone. Two other powerful deputy mayors, Philip Banks and Sheena Wright, also had their phones seized.

On Saturday, Adams was dealt another stunning blow when his chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, abruptly stepped down. Zornberg’s resignation came only two days after Caban’s. Unlike the police commissioner, Zornberg chose to leave. A person close to her told The New York Times the mayor was not taking her advice on “certain personnel matters.”

Adams himself has not been charged with any wrongdoing—and it’s still unclear if the federal probes are targeting him directly. No sitting mayor of New York has ever been indicted.

It would be too soon to declare Adams’s political career over. Perversely, the Democrat can look to another flamboyant and incendiary New Yorker, Donald Trump, as proof that legal entanglements and even indictments do not always slow political momentum. But Adams, for now, is in a far more vulnerable position, deeply unpopular with many voters across the city and threatened with a primary next year. Trump can always fall back on his cultic fan base; Adams does not have such a fervent following, and a growing number of New Yorkers are wearying of his act. He has already posted the lowest approval rating of any New York mayor in Quinnipiac University’s polling history.

The trouble for Adams started well before the latest explosion of corruption headlines. From the time he took office in 2022, he teetered from one scandal to another, and failed to take governing seriously. He stuffed the municipal government with patronage hires and turned over pivotal agencies, like the Department of Transportation, to dubious allies with limited qualifications. Talented bureaucrats fled, and Adams effectively hollowed out the governing machinery of the city. Bill de Blasio and Michael Bloomberg, the two other mayors to lead New York in the 21st century, were flawed men, but each offered a governing vision for the five boroughs and left behind tangible policy accomplishments. Bloomberg banned indoor smoking, pedestrianized Times Square, and presided over the construction of world-class parkland. De Blasio quickly established a universal pre-kindergarten program that became a national model, and aided working-class tenants with rent freezes and city-funded attorneys for housing court cases.

Adams never focused on policy or planning long enough to leave behind a legacy like that. He preferred ribbon-cuttings, flag-raisings, and carousing late at night, treating the mayoralty like the ceremonial post he used to hold, Brooklyn borough president. Petty corruption and favor-trading—at least the appearance of it—was a regular feature of the new administration. Adams’s first chief of staff, Frank Carone, abruptly left the government after a year to establish a new consulting firm with well-heeled clients who have business before the city. It was all very brazen, and also quite predictable.

Shortly after his narrow primary victory in the summer of 2021, Adams declared himself the “Biden of Brooklyn” and national pundits speculated that the mayor-in-waiting could be the fresh leader the Democratic Party sorely craved. Adams, a former police captain, is a product of the Black working class of the city, and he seemed to offer a path forward for a party too dependent on the college-educated to win elections. For moderates and corporatists hoping for a strong check on the progressive left, Adams was also attractive; he was unabashedly pro–Wall Street, pro-landlord, and pro-police.