Seizing Mayor Adams’ phones and tablet on the street in public is the latest sign the feds aren’t simply investigating him: They’re out to inflict maximum embarrassment in a political vendetta, presumably in retribution for the noise he’s made about President Biden’s disastrous border policies.
The mayor is easy to find, 24/7/365: What reason to ambush him publicly event except to humiliate him?
And why else make sure his No. 1 press enemy, The New York Times, gets the story first?
Mind you, this follows the opening raid in this investigation — which stormed the home of his top fund-raiser while Adams was in the air en route to Washington to press Biden on his failure to help the city bear the multibillion-dollar cost of caring for the illegal migrants the prez is waving into the country.
That one leaked to the Times first, too.
And sources told The Post that timing was also intentional; the feds denied it — but of course they would.
To be clear: We have no idea whether the FBI will ever produce evidence that Adams did wrong, let alone whether he actually did.
It’s certainly beyond common for campaigns to accept donations they later learn were illegal; it definitely looks like the construction company in this case used straw donors to fraudulently conceal its giving.
But it usually takes the feds years to catch on, usually to a major pattern of violations, as in the case that sent multiple Andrew Cuomo donors and aides to prison.
Nor need we remind readers in detail about the years it has taken to investigate Hunter Biden.
Which suggests a full-on effort to find something to hang on Adams ASAP — making the investigation a political hit whether or not he’s guilty.
And Adams’ repeated blasts at Biden over the migrant crisis are an obvious motive for that political abuse of law enforcement.
The mayor won’t appreciate us making this point, but this resembles the multiple prosecutions of ex-President Donald Trump: Even where Trump has crossed lines (e.g., in holding on to classified documents), the feds’ zealousness is all out of proportion in his case vs. other notorious violators of the same statutes, such as Hillary Clinton and Biden himself.
Weaponizing the FBI and Justice Department for political purposes is a major threat to democracy, no matter the victim. Congress needs to start asking tough questions about the Adams case.