Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, exits court in New York on Oct. 5, 2023.
Stephanie Keith | Bloomberg | Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Thursday denied instructing the Department of Justice to order the dismissal of the criminal prosecution of New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Trump’s denial came as Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor and five senior DOJ officials in Washington, D.C., resigned over an order by a top DOJ official to toss out the case against Adams.
“I didn’t,” Trump said at the White House when asked by a reporter if he requested the dismissal.
“I know nothing about it. I did not,” Trump added.
Emil Bove, the high-ranking DOJ official who ordered the dismissal, said Thursday that the DOJ would take over the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Bove previously represented Trump in the president’s criminal hush money case in Manhattan state court, where he was convicted at trial of falsifying business records.
Bove also said the DOJ would file a motion in Manhattan federal court to dismiss the charges against Adams, who had curried favor with Trump after being indicted last fall.
Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, resigned after refusing to carry out Bove’s order.
Sassoon, a 38-year-old conservative, told Attorney General Pam Bondi in a letter Wednesday that she strongly disagreed with Bove’s order and his rationale for it.
She also said that Adams’ lawyers at a meeting with her and Bove had repeatedly “urged what amounted to a quid pro quo” in which the mayor supported Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts in exchange for the case’s dismissal.
“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,” Sassoon wrote.
Sassoon said her prosecutors were prepared to seek an indictment of Adams on additional charges related to his alleged destruction of evidence and his instructing others to do so and provide false information to the FBI.
Adams’ lawyer Alex Spiro, in a statement, said, “The idea that there was a quid pro quo is a total lie.”
“We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us,” Spiro said.
But within hours of Sassoon resigning, Adams announced that he would sign an order allowing federal immigration officers into the Rikers Island jail complex in New York City.
“This is a deal made with the devil to try to roll back our city’s longstanding sanctuary laws and policies — policies that allow all New Yorkers to live freely while improving everyone’s public safety,” said Murad Awawdeh, CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, in a statement.
“Eric Adams has no integrity,” Awawdeh said. “He just made himself complicit with the Trump administration’s detention to deportation pipeline in exchange for a Department of Justice promise to squash the five-count federal corruption charges against him.”
Sassoon told Bove that the prosecution team responsible for Adams’ case agreed with her decision not to dismiss the case, according to a scathing letter Bove sent her Thursday.
Bove in that letter said the prosecutors on that team have been placed on administrative leave pending investigations by Attorney General Pam Bondi and the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility, to determine if they should be fired or disciplined.
After Sassoon refused to dismiss the case Thursday, the matter was reassigned to John Keller, the acting head of the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, who then also refused to dismiss the case and quit, NBC reported.
The Public Integrity Section oversees cases involving bribery of public officials.
Acting DOJ criminal division chief Kevin Driscoll also resigned Thursday after refusing to accept the Adams case.
At least three other senior officials in the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section quit after that following a meeting with the deputy attorney general.
Acting Chief of the Public Integrity Section John D. Keller.
Source: Department of Justice
The criminal case against Adams has not been dismissed as of Thursday afternoon.
Adams was indicted in September by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on charges related to alleged bribery, fraud, and a decadelong campaign contribution scheme.
On Monday, Bove ordered Sassoon to dismiss the case against Adams.
In his letter Thursday to Sassoon, Bove acknowledged her resignation and her refusal to follow that order.
“This decision is based on your choice to continue pursuing a politically motivated prosecution despite an express instruction to dismiss the case,” Bove wrote.
“You lost sight of the oath that you took when you started at the Department of Justice by suggesting that you retain discretion to interpret the Constitution in a manner inconsistent with the policies of a democratically elected President and a Senate-confirmed Attorney General,” Bove wrote.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kevin Driscoll.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
Bove’s letter says that he had directed Sassoon to dismiss the prosecution of Adams “based on well-founded concerns regarding weaponization, election interference and the impediments that the case has imposed on Mayor Adams’ ability to govern and cooperate with federal law enforcement to keep New York City safe.”
The letter says the DOJ’s investigation of Adams “was accelerated after Mayor Adams publicly criticized President Biden’s failed immigration policies.”
“Based on my review and our meetings, the charging decision was rushed as the 2024 Presidential election approached, and as the former U.S. Attorney appears to have been pursuing potential political appointments in the event Kamala Harris won that election,” Bove wrote.
Sassoon told SDNY staff in an email, “Moments ago, I submitted my resignation to the attorney general.”
“As I told her, it has been my greatest honor to represent the United States and to pursue justice as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. It has been a privilege to be your colleague, and I will be watching with pride as you continue your service to the United States.”
Sassoon had been the lead prosecutor at the fraud and conspiracy trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, the former head of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Bankman-Fried was sentenced last March to 25 years in prison.