The stunning fallout over the Justice Department’s move to drop the criminal corruption prosecution of New York Mayor Eric Adams continues to have ripple effects, resulting now in the resignations of at least six top department officials who have refused to sign onto the case’s dismissal, sources told ABC News.
The push to drop the case has led to at least three more top supervisory officials within the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section to resign, sources said. The officials joined now-former acting US attorney for Manhattan Danielle Sassoon and two other career leaders of the department’s Public Integrity Section — which is tasked with prosecuting some of the most politically sensitive corruption cases pursued by the department.
Sassoon submitted her resignation Thursday, just days after the Justice Department sought to end the federal bribery case against Adams.
Prior to her resignation, Sassoon sent a letter on Wednesday to Attorney General Pam Bondi repeatedly urging Bondi to reverse course on dropping the criminal corruption case against Adams, as ordered in a letter earlier this week from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove.
“The reasons advanced by Mr. Bove for dismissing the indictment are not ones I can in good faith defend as in the public interest and as consistent with the principles of impartiality and fairness that guide my decision-making,” Sassoon wrote.
In the letter, Sassoon repeatedly suggested DOJ leadership, including Bove, were explicitly aware of a quid pro quo suggested by Adams’ attorneys, saying Adams’ vocal support of Trump’s immigration policies would be boosted by dismissing the indictment against him.
“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,” Sassoon writes. “Although Mr. Bove disclaimed any intention to exchange leniency in this case for Adams’s assistance in enforcing federal law, that is the nature of the bargain laid bare in Mr. Bove’s memo.”
Sassoon was appointed by President Donald Trump in January to lead as acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York after Damian Williams stepped down from the role following Trump’s election victory. Trump’s permanent choice to lead the Southern District, Jay Clayton, has yet to be confirmed.
Sassoon’s resignation followed days of tension between the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan and leaders in the Justice Department over the bribery and campaign finance case against Adams.
On Monday, Bove sent a memo that told Sassoon, “You are directed, as authorized by the Attorney General, to dismiss the pending charges in United States v. Adams.”
To date, the office has not filed a motion to dismiss with the court.
On Jan. 31, Sassoon was drawn into a conversation at DOJ headquarters in Washington about the future of the case.
Sassoon’s letter detailed the meeting with Bove and counsel for the mayor, where she says Adams’ attorneys put forward “what amounted to a quid pro quo,” after which Bove “admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting’s conclusion.”
“It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment,” Sassoon said. “Nor will a court likely find that such an improper exchange is consistent with the public interest.”
Adams’ lawyer balked at that notion following Sassoon’s resignation, “The idea that there was a quid pro quo is a total lie. We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us.”
Sassoon’s letter claimed that the U.S. Attorney’s Office had already proposed seeking a superseding indictment against Adams under the new administration that would bolster the case with an additional obstruction conspiracy charge.
“We have proposed a superseding indictment that would add an obstruction conspiracy count based on evidence that Adams destroyed and instructed others to destroy evidence and provide false information to the FBI, and that would add further factual allegations regarding his participation in a fraudulent straw donor scheme,” Sassoon said.
She noted that Bove’s contention that dismissing the indictment against Adams is warranted because it has interfered in his abilities to enforce federal immigration laws “does not bear scrutiny.”
“It does not grapple with the differential treatment Adams would receive compared to other elected officials, much less other criminal defendants,” Sassoon said. “And it is unclear why Adams would be better able to aid in immigration enforcement when the threat of future conviction is due to the possibility of reinstatement of the indictment followed by conviction at trial, rather than merely the possibility of conviction at trial.”
Sassoon closes the letter noting she remains “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.”
The failure to immediately heed the directive irked DOJ leadership, including Bove and Bondi.
“That case should be dropped. It was dead at the directive of Emil so that case should be dropped,” Bondi told reporters on Wednesday.
The Justice Department planned to remove the prosecutors handling the mayor’s case and reassign it to the Public Integrity Section in Washington, D.C. However, as soon the Public Integrity Section was informed it would be taking over, John Keller, the acting head of the unit, and his boss, Kevin Driscoll, the senior most career official in the criminal division resigned, according to multiple sources.
It is now unclear who will take over the Adams case and how soon it might be dropped, the sources said.
The decision to drop Adams’ case has led to an upheaval in the senior most ranks of an already embattled Justice Department.
Bove admonished Sassoon over her repeated refusals to sign off on the dismissal in a letter responding to her resignation.
“You lost sight of the oath that you took when you started at the Department of Justice by suggesting that you retain discretion to interpret the Constitution in a manner inconsistent with the policies of a democratically elected President and a Senate-confirmed Attorney General,” Bove said in the letter obtained by ABC News.
“The Justice Department will not tolerate the insubordination and apparent misconduct reflected in the approach that you and your office have taken in this matter,” Bove added.
Bove claimed that Sassoon had suggested that Trump pardon the mayor instead of asking DOJ to drop the case. Bove said the proposal “reveals that your office’s insubordination is little more than a preference to avoid a duty that you regard as unpleasant and politically inconvenient.”
“Your oath to uphold the Constitution does not permit you to substitute your policy judgment for that of the President or senior leadership of the Justice Department, and you are in no position to suggest that the President exercise his exclusive Article II authority to make your job easier,” Bove said in his letter.
He disputed what he calls “strained” suggestions by Sassoon that there was a “quid pro quo” involved in dropping the case against Adams.
“This is false, as you acknowledged previously in writing,” Bove said. “The Justice Department is charged with keeping people safe across the country. Your office’s job is to help keep the City safe. But your actions have endangered it.”
According to Bove’s letter, the assistant U.S. attorneys “principally responsible for the case” have been placed on off-duty administrative leave pending investigations of their conduct by the attorney general’s office and DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility. He further noted their access to electronic devices has been revoked, and he ordered Sassoon and other trial attorneys to preserve any records they may have related to the case.
Adams had pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment that accused him of accepting years of luxury travel gifts in exchange for, among other things, persuading the fire department to approve the opening of the new Turkish consulate in Manhattan — despite the lingering safety concerns of inspectors.
Trump weighed in on the situation Thursday, claiming without any details or evidence that the acting U.S. attorney for SDNY was fired.
“I don’t know if he or she resigned, but, that U.S. attorney was fired,” the president told reporters during a news conference at the White House.
Adams and Trump have become more close since the election, with the mayor meeting with Trump privately several times. At the last minute, Adams cancelled his appearances at Martin Luther King Jr. Day events in New York to attend the inauguration.
The mayor has denied that he asked Trump to drop the charges or grant a pardon.
When asked Thursday if he ordered the Justice Department to drop the case Trump replied, “No, I didn’t. I know nothing about it.”
In a letter to the Southern District of New York on Monday, Bove questioned the timing of when the charges were brought, suggesting the case was part of the Biden administration’s weaponization of the Justice Department, according to sources.
Bove also said the case adversely affected Adams’ ability to help the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, the sources added.
In New York, Adams is facing increasing scrutiny and some calls to resign.
Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado called Thursday night for New York City Mayor Eric Adams to resign, writing in a post on X, “New York City deserves a Mayor accountable to the people, not beholden to the President. Mayor Adams should step down.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, meanwhile, said she is still processing and thinking through the situation. Asked on Thursday night by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow about what she might do about theoretically removing Eric Adams from his position, Hochul called the Department of Justice’s moves “unbelievably unprecedented… This is not supposed to happen in our system of justice.”
But she said she did not want to commit to any specific action with Adams. “The allegations are extremely concerning and serious. But I cannot, as the governor of this state, have a knee-jerk, politically motivated reaction, like a lot of other people are saying right now — I have to do it smart. What’s right? And I’m consulting with other leaders in government at this time.”
“This just happened; I need some time to process this and figure out the right approach,” she added later.
Federal prosecutors were instructed to dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning it could come up again. However, Bove wrote nothing could happen until after this year’s mayoral election.
Despite that threat, Spiro expressed confidence Adams would not be prosecuted.
“There is no looming threat,” Spiro said at a press conference Wednesday. “This case is over.”
Any motion to dismiss the case would have to be formally filed in court and reviewed by the judge.
ABC News: Top Stories
Read the full article .
