Mayor Eric Adams recently terminated campaign consultant Trent Pool, after being made aware of the assault allegations made against him in 2024. Adams initially sought out Pool’s expertise in order to run for re-election as an independent, but their work together has since ended.
Pool was arrested on April 27, 2024, after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend at the SoHo Grand Hotel in Manhattan.
At the scene, an NYPD spokesperson said that the woman said Pool “wrapped his hand around her neck making it hard for her to breathe and then struck her in the face with a closed fist, causing pain.” He was charged with assault and criminal obstruction of breathing.
Two months later, Pool was arrested again for violating a protective order against the same woman. Prior to both arrests, Pool was separately charged with fourth-degree assault in Seattle.
Before his brief employment with Adams, Pool worked as a campaign consultant for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Kennedy campaign expressed their support for Pool at the time of the April incident.
The Adams campaign began working with Pool after he had started to fight the assault charges. But when they were asked about his charges, a spokesperson asserted they had not been informed.
“Mayor Adams has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to allegations of any assault charges. The campaign immediately terminated all work with Trent Pool upon learning of any charges against him,” Jeff Cohen, a spokesperson for the mayor, stated to Gothamist.
Records show that the Adams campaign began paying Pool for his consultations just two weeks after the Trump administration requested the case against him be dismissed.
Cohen went on to explain that Pool’s firm was hired independently, and the mayor never spoke to him directly, meaning Adams was “entirely unaware of the allegations prior to the reporting.”
