Six days after federal agents searched the home of Mayor Eric Adams’s chief campaign fund-raiser, the mayor used his first open question-and-answer session with reporters since the raid to insist that he had done nothing wrong.
He greeted the City Hall press corps with a broad smile and laughed at a question about his own potential vulnerability to criminal charges.
“I cannot tell you how much I start the day with telling my team, ‘We’ve got to follow the law, got to follow the law, almost to the point that I am annoying,” Mr. Adams said.
It’s not the first time that someone in Mr. Adams’s inner circle has had trouble with the law. Since becoming mayor, he has seen the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, indict his former buildings commissioner for conspiracy and bribetaking. Two months earlier, Mr. Bragg indicted six people, including a retired police inspector with whom who he worked and socialized, on charges of conspiring to funnel illegal donations to the mayor’s first mayoral campaign.
Mr. Adams’s proximity to criminal inquiries drew closer last week, when federal agents conducted a pre-dawn raid on the home of Brianna Suggs, the 25-year-old former intern whom Mr. Adams elevated to a lofty fund-raising position in his campaign, despite her inexperience. Federal authorities are now investigating whether Mr. Adams’s 2021 campaign for mayor received illegal donations from the Turkish government.
On Wednesday, the mayor disclosed that his campaign has retained a lawyer at WilmerHale, the firm where the mayor’s former chief counsel is a partner in its white-collar defense practice.
Mr. Adams also seemed to allude to having retained a private attorney, saying, “I have retained a campaign and private.” He then reiterated a pledge “to cooperate as much as possible,” he added, “so they have communicated with the inquiry — agencies that are doing the inquiry.”
In the days following the raid, Mr. Adams has been scarce, canceling public appearances and delaying his regular Tuesday press availability to Wednesday — in deference, his spokesman said, to Election Day.
When Mr. Adams emerged Wednesday morning, he did so without the accompaniment of his typical walkout song: “Empire State of Mind,” by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys.
Mr. Adams began his remarks by boasting about some declines in crime across New York City, and then turned to the federal raid, referring to it as “an incident that took place last week with my campaign treasurer.” He submitted to 40 minutes of questions from reporters. Nearly all of them revolved around last Thursday’s raid and Mr. Adams’s response to it.
The day of the raid, Mr. Adams had traveled to Washington to meet with White House officials and congressional leaders about the influx of migrants into New York City, a crisis that he has said would “destroy” the city and cause devastating budget cuts. The raid prompted Mr. Adams to abruptly cancel those meetings in Washington and come home.
Mr. Adams said his decision to come home was a reflection of his concern for Ms. Suggs, and of his own humanity. The “optics,” he said, did not bother him.
“As a human being, I was concerned about a young, 25-year-old staffer that went through a traumatic experience,” Mr. Adams said. “And although I am mayor, I have not stopped being a man and a human.”
Mr. Adams did not explain how he expressed his concern, except to indicate he did not immediately talk to his aide.
“I did not speak with Brianna the day of the incident, because I didn’t want to give any appearance of interference,” he said.
When a reporter asked him if, by rushing home following the raid, he was prioritizing his personal campaign issue over an issue affecting New York City, he brusquely responded, “No, next question.”
He also talked about his relationship with the Turkish community in New York. Investigators have sought to learn more about the potential involvement of a Brooklyn construction company with ties to Turkey in Mr. Adams’s campaign, as well as a small university in Washington, D.C., that also has ties to the country and to Mr. Adams.
Mr. Adams has visited Turkey at least six times, he has said. He has held two flag-raisings for Turkey in Lower Manhattan and has appeared frequently with the Turkish consul general. On Wednesday, he also acknowledged meeting the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, when Mr. Adams was the Brooklyn borough president.
Mr. Adams said the meeting took place at a dinner for a nonprofit he did not name.
“We exchanged pleasantries,” Mr. Adams said. “I said hello, and that was the extent of our conversation.”
William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.