Like the NYPD patrolman he once was, Mayor Eric Adams has been doing his best to keep a possible crime scene under control — move along, folks, nothing to see here — but the dark cloud of scandal hanging over City Hall is proving to be bigger and thicker than Hizzoner can blow away with breezy slogans and a sunny grin.

On Wednesday, in coordinated early morning raids, FBI agents seized phones and/or searched the homes of more than half a dozen senior city officials, including Sheena Wright, first deputy mayor; David Banks, schools chancellor, and his brother Philip Banks III, deputy mayor for public safety; Edward Caban, NYPD commissioner; and Timothy Pearson, mayoral adviser.

And just like that, the leadership of New York’s government was thrown into a state of confusion, its mayor dealt what could prove to be a politically fatal blow.

“Everyone has heard me from time to time: Stay focused, no distraction, and grind,” Hizzoner later told a pack of reporters, repeating a slogan he often recites to children.

Good luck with that. When 15 FBI agents show up at your house at 5 a.m., as witnesses say happened at the Hollis home of Phil Banks, it’s safe to assume that the day’s focus will shift from managing the city’s bureaucracy to saving one’s own skin. Ben Brafman, Banks’s high-profile lawyer, confirmed that he did indeed get a call from Banks.

As the city’s small but ravenous pack of political reporters dutifully swings into action — led by The City, which first broke the news of the raids — Team Adams has tried in vain to make the story go away,........

© Daily Intelligencer