New York City’s Campaign Finance Board is sticking to its guns in denying Mayor Adams more than $4 million in public matching funds for his reelection run — and will not give him another chance to challenge the decision until mid-July, the Daily News has learned.
The board first denied Adams the matching funds in December 2024, citing a number of compliance issues, including his federal corruption indictment accusing him of taking bribes and illegal campaign cash from Turkish government operatives.
After President Trump’s Department of Justice secured a controversial dismissal of Adams’ indictment in early April, his campaign filed a formal petition last week urging the board to reconsider its denial of funds.
In an email to Adams campaign attorney Vito Pitta last Friday, Joseph Gallagher, the CFB’s general counsel, wrote that the board is denying the request for reconsideration, reiterating that the dismissal of his indictment didn’t change the panel’s view that Adams likely engaged in “violations of federal, state and/or city law.”
The CFB has cited the same reasoning in reaffirming its Adams decision at multiple board meetings earlier this year. Adams has said he did nothing wrong.
In Friday’s email, Gallagher took it a step further, writing that the board will not consider any additional challenges from Adams until its July 15 public matching funds disbursement.
The email, a copy of which was obtained by The News via a Freedom of Information Law request, said the reason the board won’t give Adams another crack at changing its mind until then is because he’s no longer running in the June 24 Democratic mayoral primary.
“Because the candidate is not on the primary election ballot, the next opportunity for the campaign to demonstrate its eligibility for public matching funds is the July 15, 2025, payment date,” Gallagher wrote.
In the interim, Gallagher wrote the CFB “welcomes the campaign to provide any and all documentation and/or explanations to demonstrate to the board that there is no reason to believe that the candidate, in the course of public funds program participation, engaged in conduct detrimental to the public funds program that is in violation of federal, state and/or city law.”
A spokesman for Adams’ reelection campaign didn’t immediately return a request for comment Wednesday. Under the law, Adams’ campaign could sue to try to overturn the CFB’s continued denial now that the reconsideration petition has been rejected.
Shortly after the dismissal of his indictment, Adams dropped out of June’s Democratic primary and announced he’d instead seek reelection as an independent candidate in November’s general election. Trump’s DOJ sought the dismissal saying it needed Adams to assist in the president’s “mass deportation” efforts, leaving many to say he is beholden to Trump’s agenda. Adams denies there’s a quid pro quo.
The board barring Adams from even trying to challenge the matching funds denial until July 15 could pose a challenge for him.
As an independent candidate, Adams is already facing a very narrow path to reelection in the heavily Democratic city. He is contending with record low approval ratings and has less campaign cash on hand than several of the candidates in the Democratic primary, who have already received millions of dollars in public matching funds.
Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who’s polling as the favorite to win the mayoral primary, was also denied matching funds in April due to a paperwork error, but his team says he expects to get millions of dollars in the public cash later this month.
The matching funds program uses public cash to match any donation mayoral candidates receive from a city resident at an 8:1 ratio up to $250. That calculation can provide for a critical cash infusion, as mayoral hopefuls need millions of dollars to staff their campaigns, pay for ads and otherwise get their messaging out.
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