New York City Mayor Eric Adams had early morning visitors to Gracie Mansion on Thursday when federal officials pulled up before sunrise on the heels of his indictment being released to the public.

Nearly a dozen people dressed in business attire were seen entering the mayor’s official residence at 6 a.m. carrying briefcases, backpacks and bags, according to the New York Times that reported they were there to conduct a search. At least one of their vehicles had a federal law enforcement placard on the dashboard.

Attorney for the mayor, Alex Shapiro, confirmed the pre-dawn visit.

“Federal agents appeared this morning at Gracie Mansion in an effort to create a spectacle (again) and take Mayor Adams phone (again). He has not been arrested and looks forward to his day in court,” he said in a released statement. 

“They send a dozen agents to pick up a phone when we would have happily turned it in.”

Mr. Adams has been indicted on criminal charges by the federal government, according to multiple news outlets, a dramatic escalation of the series of federal probes into City Hall that in recent weeks and months have delved deeper into the mayor’s inner circle.

“I always knew that if I stood firm for New Yorkers, I would become a target — and a target I have become. If I am charged, I am innocent, and I will combat this with every bit of my strength and spirit,” Mr. Adams said in a video released Wednesday. 

“I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, that I would be a target. And a target I became. For months, leaks and rumors have been aimed at me in an attempt to undermine my credibility and paint me as guilty.” 

The charges come as a series of federal corruption investigations has touched an increasing number of the mayor’s allies and top city officials, with several principals in Mr. Adams’ administration, including the police commissioner and the schools chancellor, stepping down in recent days after their phones were seized by federal investigators.

In hindsight, these resignations appear to have been a prelude to the inevitable: the indictment of the mayor.

Mr. Adams, a former police captain,  was first elected in 2021 and branded himself the  “future of the Democratic Party.”

However, since taking office, he and his administration have been plagued by allegations of corruption and graft. As New York magazine put it in March, as the investigations began to metastasize around the mayor, “After 20 years in which mayors Bloomberg and de Blasio made an effort toward transparency and good government, the people now running New York are grubbier, more transactional, and not at all embarrassed about it. Not since Ed Koch has the pay-for-play spirit been so manifest.”

As of Wednesday night, there appear to be four different federal investigations into the mayor and his administration.