6 senior officials quit after Justice Department order to drop charges against NYC mayor
Top N.Y. prosecutor alleges 'improper considerations' guided order to drop charges against Eric Adams
Six senior U.S. Justice Department officials, including Manhattan's top federal prosecutor, resigned on Thursday rather than comply with an order to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, according to internal Justice Department letters seen by Reuters and people familiar with the matter.
The departures mark a sign of resistance from career Justice Department officials to U.S. 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.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon resigned her post on Thursday, according to the memorandum by Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, a Trump appointee.
Adams had previously pleaded not guilty to charges he accepted bribes from Turkish officials.
Adams, a Democrat, has forged ties with Trump, a Republican. Adams has argued he was targeted by former president Joe Biden's administration for criticizing its immigration policy. Bove wrote on Monday that the case was interfering with Adams' ability to help Trump's immigration crackdown.
Trump has expressed sympathy for Adams. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said he did not request the Justice Department drop the case against Adams.
'Improper considerations'
In the letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi dated Feb. 12 and seen by Reuters on Thursday, Sassoon accused Adams' lawyers of offering what amounted to a "quid pro quo" — the mayor's assistance to the White House on immigration if the case were dropped
She said it would be improper to dismiss the charges in return for Adams' help on immigration, in addition to saying she had planned new charges, on allegations he destroyed evidence and directed others to do so.
In her letter to Bondi, Sassoon said dismissing the charges would only heighten concerns that the Justice Department had been weaponized.
"Because the law does not support a dismissal, and because I am confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged, I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations," Sassoon wrote.
Sassoon, 38, said she was "baffled by the rushed and superficial process" from the Justice Department.
"I understand my duty as a prosecutor to mean enforcing the law impartially, and that includes prosecuting a validly returned indictment regardless whether its dismissal would be politically advantageous, to the defendant or to those who appointed me," she said.
Sassoon, a member of the right-leaning Federalist Society who once clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
She was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York on a temporary basis shortly after Trump began his second term on Jan. 20. Trump's permanent pick to lead the office, Jay Clayton, is awaiting U.S. Senate confirmation.
Prosecution a 'sham': lawyer for mayor
Bove had ordered Sassoon to dismiss the case on Monday, in what legal experts called an effort by Trump administration officials to assert control over a prosecutor's office that has long prided itself on independence from politics.
In his Thursday memo, Bove wrote that Sassoon had refused to comply with what he called his office's finding that the case against Adams amounted to "weaponization" of the justice system.
"Your office has no authority to contest the weaponization finding," wrote Bove, Trump's former personal criminal defence lawyer. "The Justice Department will not tolerate the insubordination."
Bove wrote that the two main trial prosecutors on the Adams case would be placed on leave. He also said his office would take over the Adams case and move to dismiss it.
Adams' lawyer Alex Spiro said in an email to Reuters, "If SDNY had any proof whatsoever that the mayor destroyed evidence, they would have brought those charges — as they continually threatened to do, but didn't, over months and months. This newest false claim is just the parting shot of a misguided prosecution exposed as a sham."
A spokesperson for the Southern District of New York confirmed Sassoon's resignation. Matthew Podolsky, a former financial crimes prosecutor who had been serving as Sassoon's deputy, will now take her place, the spokesperson said.
According to a person briefed on the matter, after Sassoon refused to comply with the directive to dismiss the case, the Trump administration directed John Keller, the acting head of the Justice Department's public corruption unit, to do so.
Keller also resigned on Thursday, two people familiar with the matter said. Kevin Driscoll, a senior official in the department's criminal division, has also resigned, one of the people said.
Three other deputies in the Justice Department's public corruption unit — Rob Heberle, Jenn Clarke, and Marco Palmieri — also resigned on Thursday over the orders to dismiss the Adams case, a person familiar with the matter said.
A Justice Department official confirmed Keller's and Driscoll's resignations, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the other three.
Standoff in 1st Trump term
Since Trump began his second term in the White House on Jan. 20, the new administration fired more than a dozen prosecutors who pursued criminal charges against Trump in two cases brought in 2023. Some FBI officials and prosecutors who pursued cases against his supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to try to block Congress from certifying his election loss, were also terminated.
Trump's first term as president also saw a tussle between Washington and New York prosecutors.
In 2020, then-U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman — a Republican who had donated to Trump's 2016 campaign — was pushed out in a surprise nighttime announcement. Berman initially refused to resign, creating a brief standoff with the then-U.S. attorney general, William Barr, but he did leave after being assured his investigations into Trump's allies would not be disturbed.
Berman, in a subsequent book, outlined instances where he believed political considerations were being. Specifically, he said he was pressured by Barr to revisit the conviction of Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, that stemmed from the New York office's prosecution.
Juliet Sorensen, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, said the resignations were reminiscent of Trump's decision in his first term to fire FBI director James Comey to stop the bureau from investigating his 2016 presidential campaign.
"In both of those historical instances, as with the events of today, you have the chief executive of the United States bringing extreme political pressure by virtue of their high office against non-political Department of Justice personnel," Sorensen said.
With files from CBC News and the Associated Press