New York City Mayor Eric Adams at the state Capitol in January, holding a news conference after Gov. Kathy Hochul's State of the State address. The former state senator and Brooklyn borough president was indicted last week by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

The indictment of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, unsealed last week, makes for head-spinning reading in its long catalog of alleged corruption carried out in many instances for the most ephemeral of benefits — deluxe airline accommodations, overnight stays in opulent foreign hotels — as well as more prosaic booty such as illegal campaign funds used to leverage public matching funds. The indictment also paints a picture of Mr. Adams and his aides frequently trying to conceal these alleged crimes in the most ham-handed ways possible, as laid out in text exchanges and emails retrieved from devices the mayor and his flunkies lacked the presence of mind to digitally........

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