DOJ moves to dismiss Adams corruption charges amid prosecutor exodus

On Friday, the Justice Department filed paperwork asking a federal court to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The motion came from Acting Deputy U.S. Attorney General Emil Bove and lawyers from the department's public integrity and criminal divisions in Washington. A judge will still need to approve the request.

The formal filing marked the culmination of days of extraordinary upheaval inside the Justice Department. At least seven prosecutors across New York and Washington resigned rather than comply with orders to drop the case. Among them was Danielle Sassoon, the interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan, who quit on Thursday after Bove directed her to seek dismissal. Also departing were five high-ranking Justice Department officials in Washington and Hagan Scotten, an assistant U.S. attorney who worked on the Adams prosecution. Scotten is an Army veteran who earned two Bronze medals as a Special Forces troop commander in Iraq and graduated from Harvard Law School in 2010, where he clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts.

Bove, who represented Donald Trump against criminal charges before Trump's reelection in November, had ordered the dismissal on Monday. When Sassoon refused and resigned, he responded with a scathing letter. He then suspended the prosecutors working on the Adams case with pay and launched an investigation into whether they should keep their jobs. On Friday, after conferring with prosecutors in the public integrity section, Bove instructed them to decide among themselves who would sign the motion to dismiss. When they were told their jobs were at risk if no one stepped forward, one agreed to do it.

The charges against Adams alleged he accepted over $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks from foreign nationals seeking to buy his influence while he was Brooklyn borough president and running for mayor. In his resignation letter, Scotten wrote that no system of ordered liberty could allow the government to use the dismissal of charges—or the threat of bringing them again—to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives. He said he was following a tradition of resigning in a last-ditch effort to prevent what he viewed as a serious mistake. "If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion," Scotten wrote to Bove. "But it was never going to be me."

Bove justified the dismissal by saying Adams was needed for the Trump administration's immigration enforcement efforts and to help decrease violent crime. He also argued the charges were brought too close to this year's mayoral election and could be reinstated after the race. Sassoon, in her resignation letter, accused Adams' lawyers of offering what amounted to a quid pro quo on immigration during a meeting with Justice Department officials in Washington last month. Adams' lawyer Alex Spiro denied the allegation, calling it a "total lie." He said the team was asked whether the case had any bearing on national security and immigration enforcement and answered truthfully that it did. On Friday, Adams himself issued a statement: "I want to be crystal clear with New Yorkers: 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."

Chad Mizelle, the chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, defended the decision in a statement to Fox News, calling it evidence that the Justice Department would return to prosecuting dangerous criminals rather than pursuing what he characterized as politically motivated cases. He said prosecutors who refused to follow a direct command had no place at the department. Scotten, however, argued that any prosecutor would know that laws and traditions do not permit using prosecutorial power to influence citizens, much less elected officials. He acknowledged that a president with a background in business and politics might view the dismissal as a good deal, however distasteful. But he insisted that a lawyer should advise against it.

The Justice Department's motion sought to dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning charges could theoretically be revived in the future. A federal judge must still sign off on the request. Adams, a Democrat, pleaded not guilty to the charges in September. He has recently bonded at times with Trump, who has criticized the prosecution and said he was open to giving Adams a pardon. Adams was registered as a Republican in the 1990s.