In the days before New York City sued President Trump for seizing a tranche of migrant crisis funding, a chaotic series of events unfolded inside Mayor Adams’ administration, ending with a senior official abruptly leaving his City Hall job after refusing to get involved in the court case for fear he’d become a Trump target, the Daily News has learned.
The episode — described by sources directly familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity due to concerns about retaliation — highlights how Trump’s return to power has sown fear among career public servants, not just on the federal level, but in city government, too.
Trump’s administration plucked the $80 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funding out of city government bank accounts on Feb. 12, claiming incorrectly the money was being illegally spent on housing migrants in “luxury hotels.”
Adams’ office responded by saying it was considering legal action to recoup the FEMA cash, which was allocated to provide shelter and services for some of the tens of thousands of mostly Latin American migrants who have arrived in the city since spring 2022.
In order to file suit, someone from Adams’ Office of Management and Budget needed to sign a sworn declaration attesting to the allegedly illegal nature of the clawback.
But no one within the budget unit wanted to put their name on the document, fearful that if they did they would land in the crosshairs of Trump’s efforts to punish local government officials who stand in his way, sources told The News. The sources believed Jacques Jiha, Adams’ budget director who runs OMB, wanted someone else to sign because he himself feared retaliation.
Specifically, the sources said OMB officials were scared they’d land on the radar of Elon Musk, the billionaire whose Department of Government Efficiency team first spread the claim that the city was spending the funds on luxury hotel rooms.
Musk, who’s known to attack critics on the X social media platform he owns, has been granted extraordinary powers by Trump to tighten the federal government’s purse strings, and OMB officials were concerned his DOGE operation would “dox” them if they signed the declaration, the sources said.
The sources also said OMB employees were unsure whether Adams would protect them should such a scenario come to pass.
Adams’ relationship with Trump, which includes a commitment by the mayor to not publicly criticize the president, has come under intense scrutiny in the wake of the Trump Justice Department’s effort to drop his corruption indictment with the understanding that it could come back this fall. The DOJ has written in court papers a dismissal should enable Adams to help facilitate the president’s agenda, including his pledged “mass deportations” of undocumented immigrants, an unusual caveat many say has left the mayor beholden to Trump.
Matters at OMB came to a head on Feb. 19, when Jiha delivered an ultimatum to a senior official in the office: Sign the declaration, or be fired, sources familiar with the exchange confirmed.
The official, whose name’s being withheld by The News given the threat to his job, was at the time preparing to transfer to the NYPD for a new role he was expecting to start in mid-March. But after Jiha’s order, the employee was able to expedite his transfer, the sources said. The official then started at the NYPD last week, a timeline confirmed by municipal records.
“He was afraid and didn’t want just himself but anyone else to become a target and be doxed because [DOGE] supposedly has everyone’s names now,” a source familiar with the official’s thinking said.
The official declined to comment when reached by phone this week.
Adams spokeswoman Kayla Mamelak confirmed Friday that a “member” of OMB was told to sign the declaration, but she didn’t comment on the termination threat. Mamelak did say “we expect city employees to do the jobs they were hired to do.”
Ultimately, Jiha ended up himself signing the declaration in question, which was submitted along with the lawsuit Adams’ Law Department filed on behalf of the city on Feb. 21 to retrieve the $80 million. The suit names Trump and other top federal officials as defendants.
Mamelak said Jiha put his name on the document because he “recognized the sensitivities and concerns of signing” it.
The declaration blasts the Trump clawback as a “money grab” that violated rules restricting the federal government from reclaiming funds that have been allocated to local municipalities. The lawsuit’s pending in Manhattan Federal Court, and Trump’s administration had yet to file a response as of Friday.
“FEMA did not provide any notice that the funds would be taken or that any determination had been made to take the funds or any grounds for doing so,” Jiha’s declaration reads.
The $80 million confiscation, first discovered by Comptroller Brad Lander’s office, set off fears across the city about the Trump administration’s ability to dip into city government bank accounts, and whether more funding reversals could be forthcoming, especially as the president and Musk have threatened to withhold federal money for various local initiatives, including education programs.
The clawback also came as concerns about Adams’ leadership mounted amid the Trump DOJ’s controversial move to end his prosecution — which is pending approval from a judge. A range of elected leaders are calling on Adams to resign, saying he has become a “hostage” to Trump’s agenda. Four of Adams’ own deputy mayors submitted resignations earlier this month after telling him they don’t believe he can have solely the city’s best interests in mind in the face of what’s happening with his criminal case.
The anxiety at the Office of Management and Budget underscores that concerns about Adams’ independence from Trump are having serious impacts on municipal operations, argued Brooklyn Councilman Justin Brannan, who as Council Finance Committee chairman exercises oversight of OMB.
“The mayor needs to stand up to Trump,” said Brannan, who endorsed Adams’ 2021 mayoral run but has since grown disillusioned with him. “What message does it send when his top aides are afraid to sign a letter while countless public servants work hard every day to uphold our city’s values?”
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