Adams Defends Top Adviser’s Teatime With Gun-Toting NYC Pol

NEW YORK CITY — A top City Hall official's teatime with controversial Council Member Inna Vernikov — who was arrested last week after she brought a gun to a pro-Palestinian college protest — was all about getting stuff done, contended Mayor Eric Adams.

The mayor's Chief Adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin met with Vernikov Monday morning for tea in a sit down that the Republican pol touted online, complete with a chummy photo.

The meeting raised eyebrows, given it followed Vernikov's gun arrest last week, for which she received widespread condemnation from city officials, including within the mayor's office.

Adams, when asked Tuesday, said Vernikov packing heat to a protest was "inappropriate." But he then defended, without any details, Lewis-Martin's meeting as necessary to making New York City's government run.

"To be able to get things done, you must be willing to sit down with all groups across the aisle," he said of Lewis-Martin. "And that's what she has done."

"Police and the criminal justice system will handle the carrying of the gun, I need Ingrid to handle carrying my legislations, my policies, my decisions, all of these on the ground issues we have to face."

Other elected officials went far beyond calling Vernikov's actions "inappropriate."

Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who is not related to the mayor, said Vernikov will face an ethics investigation.

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams denounced Vernikov as wielding a tool of intimidation and seeming threat of violence."

And Council Member Shahana Hanif called for Vernikov's expulsion.

Vernikov, for her part, implicitly framed her actions as in support of Jewish people and Israel.

She tweeted that her and Lewis-Martin spoke about the "genocidal war in Israel, atrocities committed against the Jewish people, & the fear our communities here in NYC are experiencing."

"I can say with unequivocal certainty that we have true friends in this administration," she wrote.

"Thank you Dr. Ingrid Lewis-Martin and @NYCMayor for standing side by side with us even when you lose political points."