A stunning report by The New York Times alleges New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) had aides use city resources to doctor a photo of a deceased police officer in order to “connect to his working-class base.”

Reporter Emma Fitzsimmons recounted how Adams repeatedly told a “moving anecdote”— at press conferences, media interviews, and during police academy ceremonies — about his friend, Officer Robert Venable, who died in the line of duty in 1987.

Adams produced the photo during a news conference after two police officers were killed in 2022.

“I still think about Robert,” Adams said at the time. “I keep a picture of Robert in my wallet.” Fitzsimmons reported:

But the weathered photo of Officer Venable had not actually spent decades in the mayor’s wallet. It had been created by employees in the mayor’s office in the days after Mr. Adams claimed to have been carrying it in his wallet.

The employees were instructed to create a photo of Officer Venable, according to a person familiar with the request. A picture of the officer was found on Google; it was printed in black-and-white and made to look worn as if the mayor had been carrying it for some time, including by splashing some coffee on it, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

A spokesman for the mayor, Fabien Levy, told The Times that Adams has carried the photo in his wallet for decades and that The Times was just trying to “paint the mayor as a liar.”

“The Times’s efforts to attack the mayor here would be laughable if it were not so utterly offensive,” Levy said in a statement.

But Fitzsimmons reported, “This was not the first time that Mr. Adams or his campaign provided a document to The Times that raised questions of authenticity,” citing a property deed that bore his signature but had not been notarized.

Betsy Gotbaum, executive director of government watchdog Citizens Union told The Times that Adams’ alleged embellishments made no sense.

“Stretching the truth in this context does question an elected official’s credibility, and that might be a problem for voters,” she said. “I don’t see why he does it. He doesn’t need to do it, so why does he do it?”

Read The New York Times article here.

The post Stunning Report Reveals NYC Mayor Adams Tried To Appeal To His ‘Working-Class Base’ By Carrying Doctored Photo Of Deceased Officer first appeared on Mediaite.

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