Six officials in the Justice Department, including the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, have resigned in protest over orders to drop the bribery case against Mayor Eric Adams, a push that has torn apart the senior ranks of federal law enforcement. There are also new details emerging about the case against Adams as well as about an apparent deal the mayor’s lawyers worked out with acting U.S. deputy attorney general Emil Bove.
On Thursday, Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, stepped down after telling Attorney General Pam Bondi in a letter that the department’s move to dismiss Adams’s case so he could assist the the Trump administration with immigration enforcement amounts to a corrupt “quid pro quo.”
It did not end there. When the department tried to reassign the case to the public-integrity unit in Washington, D.C., for it to be terminated, the acting head of the division, John Keller, resigned. So too did Kevin Driscoll, the top official leading the criminal division. Within hours, another three officials at the unit had also resigned, per multiple reports.
In a letter responding to Sassoon’s resignation, Bove admonished her for her refusal to drop the case, claiming she had “lost sight” of the oath she took when she started at the Justice Department. Bove said that the prosecutors who worked on the case will be placed on administrative leave and that Sassoon, alongside them, will be investigated by the attorney general’s office.
It was a stunning rebuke of the Trump administration from Sassoon, a Republican who had previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and is a member of the conservative Federalist Society. Sassoon was serving as interim U.S. Attorney while Donald Trump’s nominee, Jay Clayton, the former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, awaits Senate confirmation.
In the letter to Bondi, Sassoon detailed a meeting with Adams’s attorney, laying out what she said was a corrupt bargain for the mayor’s freedom.
I attended a meeting on January 31, 2025, with Mr. Bove, Adams’s counsel, and members of my office. Adams’s attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed. Mr. 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.
“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,” she said.
The New York Times has reported that, soon after Trump took office, Adams’s lawyers contacted the White House to formally request that Trump pardon the mayor. They didn’t get a pardon, but Bove reached out a week later to discuss dismissing the case and ultimately coached them about how to get it done:
The series of events — in which the acting No. 2 official at the Justice Department seemed to guide criminal defense lawyers toward a rationale for dropping charges against a high-profile client — represents an extraordinary shattering of norms for an agency charged with enforcing the laws of the United States …
Prompted by Mr. Bove, the mayor’s lawyers refined their approach until they landed on a highly unorthodox argument, records and interviews show — one that was ultimately reflected in Mr. Bove’s memo to prosecutors on Monday. That memo stated that the criminal case had “unduly restricted Mayor Adams’s ability” to address illegal immigration and violent crime. It also pointedly said that the decision had nothing to do with the evidence or the law.
In her letter, Sassoon revealed that her team was considering bringing a superseding indictment against Adams alleging that he had obstructed the case by both destroying evidence and instructing others to provide the FBI with false information. “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,” she wrote.
Regardless, Sassoon’s resignation likely clears the way for the federal government to officially drop Adams’s case. Last fall, Sassoon’s predecessor, Damian Williams, indicted Adams on five federal counts, alleging he had knowingly sought illegal foreign contributions to his 2021 mayoral campaign. Adams has long denied the charges and has suggested he was being targeted in retaliation for his criticism of the Biden administration’s handling of the migrant crisis.
Adams, who has sought and curried favor with Trump and his administration in recent months, praised the Justice Department’s intention to dismiss his case during an address on Tuesday. “Now we can put this cruel episode behind us and focus entirely on the future of our city. It’s time to move forward,” he said.
On Thursday evening, Adams announced he would sign an executive order furthering Trump’s immigration policy by allowing ICE agents into Rikers Island, challenging a law passed in 2015 by the City Council and signed by then-mayor Bill de Blasio.
This post has been updated.
