Manhattan US Lawyer resigns after refusing to drop the case against Mayor Adams

New York (AP) – the top federal charges in Manhattan withdrew Thursday after refusing a The Ministry of Justice’s order to fall charges of corruption Against the Mayor of New York City Eric Adams. Before you hold up, Danielle Sassoon told President Donald Trump’s new lawyer that she was “confident” Adams had committed the crimes.

Two officials in the senior department also retired after the departmental management moved to seize the case. The functioning Deputy Deputy Attorney, former Trump -personal Attorney Emil Bove, who had ordered the Adams case, fell, said in a letter Accepting Sassoon’s resignation that the Ministry of Justice in Washington would submit a proposal to drop the charges and the bar “further targeted” for the democratic mayor.

Sassoon, a Republican who serves as a preliminary US lawyer for the southern district of New York, announced his resignation in an E email to his staff. The move, confirmed by a spokesman for the office, came after a day -long resistance between the Manhattan prosecutor and her superior in Washington.

The dueling letters from officials in New York and Washington just lay down in a sharp personal language Gravity of a Simmering, behind the scenes dispute over the handling of one of the government’s most significant current cases of public corruption. The result not only threatens to create an irrevocable cleavage in the relationship between the department’s headquarters and its most prestigious prosecution, but also risks strengthening the perception that Trump’s administration will apply a transaction method to law enforcement decisions.

“I remain confused by the hasty and superficial process by which this decision was made,” Sassoon wrote on Wednesday in a letter to American law lawyer Pam Bondi, a copy obtained by The Associated Press. Sassoon called on Bondi to rethink the directive of dropping Adams’ case.

When Sassoon refused to comply with the Trump Administration’s order, the department’s public integrity section was asked to take over the case, according to a person familiar with the case. Two senior officials who supervise the unit, including acting boss, withdrew in response, according to the person who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel cases.

Outputs came days after Bove instructed federal prosecutors in New York to end the case against Adams, accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions and bribery of free or reduced journeys from people who would buy his influence. He has not pleaded guilty.

Bove said in a memo on Monday that the case should be dismissed so Adams could help President Donald Trump’s immigration snack and Campaign for re -election free to face criminal charges. The primary is four months away and Adams has several challengers.

Bove quarreled Sassoon in a letter that accepted her resignation. He wrote that she was “unable to fair and impartial to review the circumstances of this prosecution.” Bove said he would open internal investigations of her “behavior” and prosecutors who worked on the Adam case. They will be placed on “off-duty, administrative leave,” he said.

Bove had instructed Sassoon to drop Adams’ case as soon as “practical”, but there have been no public statements or lawsuits from the prosecution. Wednesday, Bondi said she would “Look at” why the case had not yet been rejected. From Thursday afternoon, the charges remained in place.

In his letter to Bondi, Sassoon Adams’ lawyers accused of repeatedly and explicitly offering what constituted a “Quid Pro Quo” during a meeting with the Justice Department last month. She wrote that the lawyers had offered the mayor’s help to the Trump administration’s priorities of immigration enforcement if the case were to be rejected.

“It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’ opportunistic and changing obligations to immigration and other political affairs of a criminal indictment,” Sassoon wrote. She calls the alleged offer “a wrong offer of immigration enforcement assistance in return for a dismissal of his case.”

In an e -mail, Adams’ lawyer, Alex Spiro, said the claim of a Quid Pro Quo was a “total lie.”

“We offered nothing and the department asked nothing about us,” Spiro said. “We were asked if the case had any bearing on national security and immigration enforcement, and we answered it.”

The department’s decision to end the Adams case due to political considerations rather than the strength or weakness of the evidence, some career complaints said that it was a deviation from many years of norms.

The directive from Bove was all more remarkable because Bove had been a long -time prosecutor and supervisor in the southern district, and because departmental leaders are historically reluctant to intervene in cases where charges have been brought.

Boves Memo also ruled free of any legal basis for the dismissal despite decades of departmental tradition, which dictates that decision decisions must be governed by facts, evidence and the law.

Sassoon, a former clerk of the late US Supreme Court judge Antonin Scalia, was not the prosecutor who brought the case against Adam’s last year. It was the then lawyer Damian Williams who stepped down after Trump’s election victory in November.

Sassoon had only been exploited to act as acting US lawyer on January 21, the day after Trump joined.

Her role was intended to be temporary. Trump Nominated Trump in November Jay Clayton, former US Securities and Exchange Commission President to the position, an agreement to be confirmed by the Senate. It hasn’t happened yet.

The southern district of New York is among the largest and most prominent prosecutors in the United States with a long track record tackling Wall Street Malfeasance, political corruption and international terrorism. It has a tradition of independence from Washington, something that has achieved the nickname “The Søverign District.”

This is the second Ministry of Justice that is five years between Washington and New York officials to result in a dramatic leadership turnover.

In 2020, William Barr pushed, who served as one of Trump’s General Attorney during his first period, Geoffrey Berman, the American lawyer in Manhattan, in a surprise at night. Originally refused to resign his attitude and created a short standoff with Barr, but did so after an assurance that his investigations of allied Trump would not be disturbed.

Adams were charged In September on charges that while working as Brooklyn Borough president, he accepted over $ 100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel, such as expensive flight upgrades, luxury hotel stays and even a trip to a bathhouse.

The indictment said that a Turkish official who helped ease trips, then lean on Adams for favors, including asking him to lobby the fire department to allow a newly built 36-story diplomatic building open in time for a planned visit by Turkish president.

Prosecutors said they had evidence that Adam’s personally instructed political helpers to request foreign donations and hide them to help the campaign qualify for a city program that provides a generous, publicly funded battle for small dollar donations. According to federal laws, foreign nationals are prohibited from contributing to US election campaigns.

As late as January 6, prosecutors had stated that their investigation remained active and wrote in court papers, that they continued to “uncover additional criminal behavior from Adams.”

Bove said in his memo that the Washington Ministry of Justice had not evaluated the evidence in the case until he decided it should be dropped – at least until the mayor’s election came in November.

But he criticized “recent public acts” of Williams, as he said, had “threatened the integrity of the procedure, including by increasing the condemnable prior advertising.” Williams has not talked publicly about the Adams case since his resignation, but wrote an editorial decrying of corruption in politics.

Federal agents had also examined other senior Adams helpers. It was unclear what will happen to that side of the probe. __

Richer and Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jake Offenhartz and Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.