Donald J. Trump’s electoral victory alarmed most New York Democrats — but not Eric Adams. For Mr. Adams, the mayor of New York City who had been criminally indicted and faced political isolation, it was a golden opportunity.
In the weeks before the presidential inauguration, Mr. Adams cozied up to Mr. Trump, his political allies and his family.
The mayor called the president-elect on multiple occasions, congratulating him on his election victory and discussing city affairs. He met at a luxury Manhattan hotel with Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s ally and former top aide. And he contacted the president’s second son, Eric Trump, who runs the Trump family business.
The previously unreported extent of the charm campaign was recounted in interviews with more than a dozen people knowledgeable about the effort, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the nature of the communications.
The effort culminated in Mr. Adams receiving an in-person meeting with Mr. Trump in Florida just days before the inauguration.
While Mr. Adams did not explicitly raise his corruption case at the Florida meeting, the people said, Mr. Trump appeared sympathetic to the mayor’s legal plight. The president-elect, on the verge of attaining the power to make the mayor’s case disappear, lamented that the Justice Department under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was “weaponized.”