Justice Department asks Court to Dismiss Corruption Charges Against NYC Mayor Eric Adams, Federal Prosecutors Push Back Against DOJ Leadership
(AP) — The Justice Department asked a court Friday to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, with a top official from Washington intervening after federal prosecutors in Manhattan rebuffed his demands to drop the case and some quit in protest.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, the department’s second-in-command, and lawyers from the public integrity section and criminal division filed paperwork asking to end the case. They contend it was marred by appearances of impropriety and that letting it continue would interfere with the mayor’s reelection bid. A judge must still approve the request.
Mass Resignations Over Case Dismissal
The filing came hours after Bove convened a call with the prosecutors in the Justice Department’s public integrity section — which handles corruption cases — and gave them an hour to pick two people to sign onto the motion to dismiss, saying those who did so could be promoted, according to a person familiar with the matter.
After prosecutors got off the call with Bove, the consensus among the group was that they would all resign. But a veteran prosecutor stepped up out of concern for the jobs of the younger people in the unit, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the private meeting.
The three-page dismissal motion bore Bove’s signature and the names of Edward Sullivan, the public integrity section’s senior litigation counsel, and Antoinette Bacon, a supervisory official in the department’s criminal division. No one from the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan, which brought the Adams case, signed the document.
Political Implications and Trump’s Role
The move came five days into a showdown between Justice Department leadership in Washington and its Manhattan office, which has long prided itself on its independence as it has taken on Wall Street malfeasance, political corruption, and international terrorism.
Bove concluded that continuing the prosecution would interfere with Adams’ ability to govern, posing “unacceptable threats to public safety, national security, and related federal immigration initiatives and policies,” the dismissal motion said. Among other things, it said, the case caused Adams to be denied access to sensitive information necessary to help protect the city.
Bove sent a memo Monday directing Sassoon, a Republican, to drop the case. He argued the mayor was needed in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and echoed Adams’ claims that the case was retaliation for his criticism of Biden administration immigration policies.
Instead of complying, Sassoon resigned Thursday, along with five high-ranking Justice Department officials in Washington. A day earlier, she sent a letter to Trump’s new attorney general, Pam Bondi, asking her to meet and reconsider the directive to drop the case.
Backlash from Legal Experts and Former Officials
Seven former Manhattan U.S. attorneys, including James Comey, Geoffrey S. Berman, and Mary Jo White, issued a statement lauding Sassoon’s “commitment to integrity and the rule of law.”
On Friday, Hagan Scotten, an assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan who worked for Sassoon and had a leading role in Adams’ case, became the seventh prosecutor to resign — and blasted Bove in the process.
Scotten wrote in a resignation letter to Bove that it would take a “fool” or a “coward” to meet his demand to drop the charges, “But it was never going to be me.” He told Bove he was “entirely in agreement” with Sassoon’s decision.
Scotten and other Adams case prosecutors were suspended with pay on Thursday by Bove, who launched a probe of the prosecutors that he said would determine whether they kept their jobs.
In her letter to Bondi, Sassoon accused Adams’ lawyers of offering what amounted to a “quid pro quo” — his help on immigration in exchange for dropping the case — when they met with Justice Department officials in Washington last month.
Adams’ lawyer Alex Spiro said Thursday that the allegation of a quid pro quo was a “total lie.”
“We were asked if the case had any bearing on national security and immigration enforcement and we truthfully answered it did,” Spiro said in an email to reporters.
On Friday, Adams added: “I never offered — nor did anyone offer on my behalf — any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case. Never.”
Scotten seconded Sassoon’s objections in his letter, writing: “No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.”
