Manhattan US Attorney resigns over 'rushed' DOJ process to drop charges against Eric Adams
NEW YORK − Federal prosecutors were planning to hit New York's scandal-scarred mayor with new charges when the Justice Department ordered them to drop the case, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan said in a letter Thursday as she and other top officials resigned in protest.
Acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, the Trump administration's recent pick to temporarily lead the office prosecuting Mayor Eric Adams, announced her resignation in an eight-page letter detailing that her office had planned to charge the mayor with destroying evidence and telling others to do so and to lie to the FBI.
But, she said in the letter published by the New York Post, her office was undermined by the Department of Justice after acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove directed her to dismiss the indictment against Adams.
"I remain baffled by the rushed and superficial process by which this decision was reached, in seeming collaboration with Adams’s counsel and without my direct input on the ultimate stated rationales for dismissal," she wrote.
Adams was indicted on corruption charges in September and his trial was scheduled to begin in April.
The move to drop the charges came as Adams has grown closer to President Donald Trump. Both claimed to have been unfairly targeted by former President Joe Biden's Justice Department.
New York politicians praised Sassoon. "The stench of this corrupt deal was apparently too much for the prosecutor who’d have to carry it out," State Sen. Zellnor Myrie, who is challenging Adams in the 2025 Democratic primary, said on X. "But not for the Mayor it’s designed to help − and control."
Sassoon, a Republican who clerked for the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, said the Justice Department’s decision gave Adams leniency in exchange for doing the administration’s bidding on immigration enforcement.
“Rather than be rewarded, Adams’s advocacy should be called out for what it is: an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case,” she said in the letter published by the New York Post.
“The idea that there was a quid pro quo is a total lie," Adams attorney Alex Spiro said. "We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us."
In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Thursday night, Gov. Kathy Hochul said the allegations against Adams are extremely concerning. But she said she won't have a "knee-jerk, politically motivated reaction" to Sassoon’s letter.
However, Hochul stopped short of saying she wouldn’t remove Adams, which she can do under the City Charter.
“I have to do what’s smart, what’s right, and I’m consulting with other leaders in government at this time,” she said. “We’ve gotta have one sane person in the state who can cut through all the crap.”
One person who did call for Adams to step down: Hochul's lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, who said on social media, "New York City deserves a Mayor accountable to the people, not beholden to the President."
The departures mark the latest sign of resistance from career Justice Department officials to President Donald Trump's efforts to overhaul the agency to end what he calls its weaponization against political opponents. Critics say Trump's changes threaten to subject criminal prosecutions to political whims.
It's bewildering to some city leaders.
“We are now at the beck and call of the Trump administration,” City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams told reporters. “We don’t know what this looks like.”
John Keller, the acting head of the Justice Department's public corruption unit, also resigned over the Adams case, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Kevin Driscoll, a senior official in the department's criminal division, has also resigned, Reuters reported.
A Justice Department official confirmed the resignations to Reuters. It was not immediately clear who would take Sassoon's place.
On Monday, Bove ordered Sassoon to drop corruption charges against Adams, a Democrat who has forged ties with Trump, in what former prosecutors called a sign of political interference.
Reuters reported Sassoon refused to comply with the directive to dismiss the case, and Trump's administration then directed Keller's office to do so. Keller resigned rather than comply, Reuters reported.
Since Trump began his second term in the White House on January 20, the new administration fired more than a dozen prosecutors who pursued criminal charges against him in two cases brought in 2023, paused all civil rights and environmental litigation, and ordered criminal investigations of state and local officials who interfere with his hardline immigration initiatives.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, in her first day on the job last week, issued a directive stating that Justice Department lawyers who decline to appear in court or sign briefs would be disciplined and possibly fired.
Southern district has tradition of independence
The Southern District of New York, known for bringing high-profile cases on financial crimes, public corruption and national security, has long been known for its independence from the Justice Department in Washington.
Last September, Sassoon's predecessor Damian Williams - a Biden appointee - charged Adams with accepting bribes from Turkish officials as part of a string of high-profile corruption cases - including the trial conviction on bribery charges of former New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, also a Democrat.
Menendez is appealing.
Adams pleaded not guilty and has argued the charges were brought as retaliation for his criticism of Biden's immigration policies. Trump, whose two federal cases were dismissed after his election victory but who was convicted on separate state-level charges, has expressed sympathy for Adams.
In a memorandum to Sassoon ordering Adams' case be dismissed, Bove said the directive had nothing to do with its merits. Instead, he wrote that the case was distracting Adams from helping Trump crack down on illegal immigration, one of the Republican president's top priorities.
A half-dozen former SDNY prosecutors told Reuters this week that the order from Bove, himself a former SDNY prosecutor who also served as Trump's personal criminal defense lawyer, raised questions about whether the office can remain independent of political pressure during Trump's second White House term.
"The U.S. Attorney must have concluded that she could not dismiss these charges while also carrying out her oath of office," said Harry Sandick, a former SDNY federal prosecutor. "She displayed courage and a respect for the traditions of the office by declining to follow an order that she apparently viewed as unjust."
Prosecutors in the Southern District have not yet filed a formal motion seeking to have the case dismissed three days after Bove's Monday order that the case be dropped.
Driscoll, who has been with the department for more than two decades, oversaw the criminal division's money laundering and asset recovery and public integrity sections.
Keller has been with the department since 2010. He only became the acting head of the public integrity section recently, after the former chief Corey Amundson resigned when Trump-appointed officials tried to reassign him to an immigration-focused unit.
Contributing: Reuters