Mayor Adams' legal team is ramping up allegations that the government leaked information and embarrassed the grand jury

Mayor Eric Adams' lawyers on Friday stepped up their claims that the government leaked confidential information that could jeopardize his federal bribery case.

In a new filing released Friday morning, Adams' defense team didn't mince words about the leaks – arguing that federal prosecutors for the Southern District of New York, law enforcement agencies and news outlets released confidential information a year ago that would have been public The grand jury could have heard the case.

“One of two things happened here,” the lawyers began. “Either the government leaked grand jury information in violation of Rule 6(e), or multiple individuals in a criminal investigation independently leaked self-harming information, contrary to their own interests.”

The mayor's defense team, led by Alex Spiro, first raised the leaks in a motion it filed about a week after his initial arraignment – accusing federal prosecutors of leaking the information. They called for an evidentiary hearing to investigate what was shared and sanctions to “plug the leaks going forward.”

Two weeks later, federal prosecutors responded with a motion of their own, blaming law enforcement, the targets of the investigation and anyone else they may have spoken to. Prosecutors said sources cited by multiple news outlets, including the New York Times and New York Post, “appear to be far removed from the prosecution team” because some of the details in those reports were inaccurate.

Friday morning's filing was the defense team's rebuttal to those claims.

“Only someone who works in the DOJ, FBI or… [the city’s Department of Investigation] could have leaked all this information,” they wrote.

DOI spokeswoman Diane Struzzi said the agency would not comment. The FBI did not immediately respond.

Daniel Richman, a former prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, said allegations of leaks are “straight from the aggressive playbook of white-collar defense attorneys” but should still be taken seriously.

“It's an easy call for a defense attorney to put the government in the wrong and try to at least get hearings that would allow them to embarrass the government and perhaps get some useful information for their own case,” he said. “It’s difficult to get to the bottom of the leaks.”

Representatives for the New York Times and New York Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment about their reporters' involvement in the allegations.