As New York City Mayor Eric Adams continues to fight federal charges of having accepted bribes in return for political favors, attorney Jim Walden has become the sixth candidate to enter the primary field in the hope of winning the 2025 mayoral election.
Formerly served as assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Walden joins, as an independent, a primary field including prominent figures in New York Democrat Party politics such as Comptroller Brad Lander, who has often been at odds with Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Also in the field are former Comptroller Scott Springer; State Senator Zellnor Myrie; State Senator Jessica Ramos; and Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblyman representing the 36th district.
Of the declared candidates, Walden is the only one who is not running as a Democrat as well as the only one who does not currently hold public office in the city.
Walden is a name partner of the law firm Walden Macht Harran & Williams and an experienced litigator who has represented CEOs of companies and politicians, including former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former Mayor Bill de Blasio, in a wide range of contentious matters.
Statements that Rodchenkov made to Richard McLaren, a law professor who previously served on a commission under the World Anti-Doping Agency, formed the basis for a 2016 report that charged Russian officials with having doped more than 1000 athletes.
The International Olympic Committee subsequently disinvited Russia to the 2018 Winter Games.
On Dec. 4, 2020, then-U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law a bill named after the Russian dissident, the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act.
Walden has had his eyes on a mayoral candidacy for some time.
In contrast to the other declared candidates in the primary field, Walden has a direct connection to the legal case brought against the mayor the six candidates are vying to replace.
One of Walden’s clients is Joseph Jardin, chief of fire prevention in the New York City Fire Department, who Mayor Adams allegedly pressured to fast-track the approval of a consular building said to have had fire safety violations that would have taken months or years to address.
According to the indictment filed in the district court for the Southern District of New York, this was one of many strings that the mayor allegedly pulled on behalf of representatives of the Turkish government who had provided him with free or discounted first-class international travel, luxury hotel stays, meals, and entertainment.
The mayor also stands charged with accepting donations from straw donors to circumvent laws regarding political donations from outside U.S. borders, with improperly using a matching donation program to take in an additional $10 million of campaign funds, and with failing to report properly all the money he received as an employee of the city.
Adams has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges and has denied any wrongdoing, and in a filing on Oct. 25, his lawyer Alex Spiro said that an evidentiary hearing was still necessary to determine whether the mayor had broken the law in his dealings with Turkish officials.
Walden did not respond by publication time to a request for comment.
