Mayor Eric Adams sues NYC Campaign Finance Board over public matching funds denial

Chris Sommerfeldt, New York Daily News on Aug 18, 2025

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NEW YORK – Mayor Eric Adams is suing New York City’s Campaign Finance Board over its latest refusal to give him public matching funds for his reelection effort, claiming the panel has shown a “deplorable and anti-democratic bias” against him by withholding the critical cash, the Daily News has learned.

The board first started denying the mayor more than $3 million in matching funds in late 2024 due to his federal corruption indictment. The indictment was dropped this spring by President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice as part of a controversial arrangement that did not address the merits of the prosecution and left many to believe the mayor has become beholden to Trump.

Despite the dismissal of the corruption case, the CFB has continued to withhold matching funds from Adams, saying earlier this month it still believes the mayor “has violated the law,” citing an independent and ongoing investigation. Additionally, the CFB ruled on Aug. 6 that another reason for denial is that Adams’ team has “provided incomplete and misleading information” to the board in response to long-running requests for information related to suspected straw donations to his campaign.

In a lawsuit filed late Friday in Brooklyn Federal Court, attorneys for Adams’ reelection campaign rejected both those claims and argued a judge should step in and order the CFB to disburse the matching funds the mayor is seeking. The attorneys wrote the amount of matching funds the CFB is now wrongfully withholding has ballooned to nearly $5 million.

“[The board] has shown a deplorable and anti-democratic bias against the Adams Campaign and has done all it can to deprive the Adams Campaign of public funds intended to amplify political speech and civic debate for all candidates, including those the CFB does not favor, and for the benefit of all New Yorkers,” the Adams attorneys wrote in the suit.

A spokesman for the CFB declined to comment.

The latest suit comes after Adams sued the CFB on similar grounds in May, shortly after the dismissal of his indictment.

In response to that suit, a judge upheld the CFB’s denial of matching funds on the grounds that Adams’ team had not provided adequate responses to requests for documentation. However, the judge also ruled that the CFB could not deny Adams matching funds because of the corruption indictment, given that Trump’s DOJ quashed it.

In its latest lawsuit, Adams’ attorneys wrote his campaign has since responded to all outstanding requests for documentation, though they did acknowledge the campaign hasn’t produced records sought by the CFB that are subject to a protective order that remains in place in his criminal case.

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