Mayor Adams is headed to Washington, D.C. to attend the annual National Day of Prayer on Thursday, a spokeswoman said. The bipartisan event will be headlined by President Trump.
“He’s going to represent the city at a very high-profile event,” Kayla Mamelak, Adams’ press secretary, said late Wednesday shortly after the mayor departed on a flight for the capital.
Adams will attend the Thursday morning National Prayer Breakfast on Capitol Hill with Tiffany Raspberry, his deputy mayor of intergovernmental affairs, a staffer from Raspberry’s office and Liz Garcia, a spokeswoman for Adams. The city is covering their hotels and travel because Mamelak said there’s a “city purpose” to their trip.
The mayor departed New York on Wednesday night to get to D.C. in time for the 7:30 a.m. breakfast, where Trump will deliver remarks.
Mamelak did not say whether the mayor would be meeting with Trump or Department of Justice officials while in D.C. Adams, who has pleaded not guilty to criminal corruption charges, is facing scrutiny for what critics see as an overly cozy relationship with the Republican president, who said last year he would consider pardoning the mayor.
“Tiffany is working to arrange meetings, if he does meet with anyone from the federal government it’ll be through Tiffany’s office,” Mamelak said.
The National Prayer Breakfast is a bipartisan annual event typically attended by the president and hosted by members of Congress.