jiliko What to Know About Damian Williams, the Man Prosecuting Eric Adams

In November 2021, shortly after President Biden appointed him to serve as the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Damian Williams said one of his obligations in the new post was crystal clear: “To be fiercely independent of politics.”

Since then, Mr. Williams has led the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York in major corruption prosecutions against politicians of both major parties, notably including Democrats like Robert Menendez, the former New Jersey senator who was convicted at trial in July; and former New York Lt. Gov. Brian A. Benjamin, who has pleaded not guilty to bribery charges.

On Thursday, Mr. Williams announced charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York, also a Democrat, after a lengthy corruption investigation into whether he and his campaign conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal foreign donations.

Mr. Williams, at a news conference, said the conduct charged in the indictment — the foreign money, the corporate money, the bribery, the years of concealment — was a “grave breach of the public’s trust.”

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“Public office is a privilege,” Mr. Williams said. “We allege that Mayor Adams abused that privilege and broke the law, laws that are designed to ensure that officials like him serve the people — not the highest bidder, not a foreign bidder, and certainly not a foreign power.”

Mr. Williams’s ascent to the Southern District’s top post followed years of tumult in the office, which has long guarded its independence from Washington, earning it the nickname the Sovereign District.

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