DOJ moves to dismiss Adams corruption charges amid prosecutor exodus

On Friday, the Justice Department filed paperwork asking a federal judge 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 Washington, not from the prosecutors in Manhattan who had built the case. A judge would need to approve the request before it took effect.

The filing capped days of extraordinary turmoil inside the Justice Department. At least seven prosecutors had quit rather than comply with orders to drop the case. Among them was Danielle Sassoon, the interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan—the office's top official. She resigned Thursday after Bove directed her to seek dismissal. Five senior Justice Department officials in Washington also walked away. On Friday, Hagan Scotten, an assistant U.S. attorney who worked on the Adams prosecution, became the seventh to leave, sending a resignation letter that amounted to a public rebuke of the entire enterprise.

Scotten was an Army veteran who had earned two Bronze Stars as a Special Forces commander in Iraq. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2010 at the top of his class and clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts. In his letter to Bove, he said it would take "a fool" or "a coward" to file the motion Bove was demanding. He argued that no system of law could allow the government to use the threat of prosecution—or the promise of dismissal—to pressure an elected official into supporting its policy goals. "Our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way," he wrote.

Bove had justified the dismissal on two grounds: Adams was needed to help the Trump administration's immigration enforcement efforts, and the charges had been brought too close to the mayoral election. The Justice Department's motion sought to dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning the charges could theoretically be revived later. Bove also said the case could be reinstated after the election. Sassoon, in her own resignation letter, had accused Adams' lawyers of offering what amounted to a quid pro quo on immigration when they met with Justice Department officials in Washington the previous month. Adams' lawyer Alex Spiro denied this flatly, saying the team had offered nothing and that they had simply answered truthfully when asked whether the case bore on national security and immigration enforcement.

Adams himself denied any deal. "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," he said in a statement Friday. The mayor, a Democrat, had pleaded not guilty in September to charges that he accepted over $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks from foreign nationals seeking to buy his influence when he was Brooklyn borough president and running for mayor.

Bove had suspended the prosecutors on Thursday with pay and launched an investigation into them, telling them their jobs were at risk. On Friday, he met with prosecutors in the public integrity section and instructed them to decide among themselves who would sign the dismissal motion. When they were told their employment depended on someone stepping forward, one agreed to do it, according to a person briefed on the private discussions.

Chad Mizelle, Pam Bondi's chief of staff, called the decision to drop the case "yet another indication that this DOJ will return to its core function of prosecuting dangerous criminals, not pursuing politically motivated witch hunts." He said the prosecutors' refusal to follow orders proved they had "disordered and ulterior motives" and had "no place at DOJ." Bondi, Trump's attorney general, had indicated the motion would be filed Friday.

Scotten's letter captured the core dispute. He acknowledged that a president with Trump's background in business and politics "might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal." But he said any prosecutor would know better. "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," he wrote. "But it was never going to be me."

The judge's approval remained pending. The case had become a test of whether prosecutorial independence could survive pressure from the executive branch, and whether the threat of job loss could compel lawyers to abandon their professional judgment.