US Prosecutor, Officials of the Department of Justice, resign after the order to drop the case of Eric Adams

New York – Federal prosecutors planned to hit Mayor with New York scandal scars With new positions when the Department of Justice ordered them to leave the case, the United States prosecutor in Manhattan said in a letter on Thursday while she and other senior officials resigned in protest.

The Fiscal Prosecutor of the United States, Danielle Sassoon, the recent election of the Trump administration to temporarily lead the office in Mayor Eric Adams, announced his resignation in an eight -page letter that detailed that his office had planned to accuse the mayor of destroying evidence and telling others to do it and do it and did it and do it. Lying to the FBI.

But, he said in the letter published by the New York Post, his office was undermined by the Department of Justice after the Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered her Dismiss the accusation against Adams.

“I remain bewildered by the hast and superficial process by which this decision was reached, in an apparent collaboration with Adams’s lawyer and without my direct contribution on the final declared reasons for dismissal,” he wrote.

Adams was accused of positions of corruption In September and his trial was scheduled to start in April.

The measure to leave the charges occurred when Adams has approached President Donald Trump. Both claimed to have been unjustly attacked by the Department of Justice of former President Joe Biden.

New York politicians praised Sassoon. “The stench of this corrupt agreement was apparently too much for the prosecutor who would have to carry it out,” he said in X. “But not for the mayor, state senator Zellnor, who is challenging Adams in the 2025 Democratic primaries.” But not for the mayor is designed to help, and control. “

Sassoon, a Republican who prepared for the deceased conservative Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia said that the decision of the Department of Justice gave Clemencia to Adams in exchange for making the administration’s offers for the application of immigration.

“Instead of being rewarded, Adams’s defense should be called for what it is: an inadequate offer of immigration application assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case,” he said in the letter published by the New York Post.

“The idea that there was a quid pro quo is a total lie,” said Adams lawyer Alex Spiro. “We did not offer anything and the department did not ask us anything about us.”

“Now we are in the Beck and the call of the Trump administration,” Adraienne Adams told reporters. “We don’t know how this looks.”

The outputs mark the last resistance signal of the officials of the career of career to President Donald Trump’s Efforts to review the agency to end what he calls his weapon weapon against political opponents. Critics say that Trump’s changes threaten to submit criminal processions to political whims.

John Keller, interim head of the Public Corruption Unit of the Department of Justice, also resigned on the case of Adams, told Reuters two people familiar with the matter. Kevin Driscoll, a senior official of the Department’s criminal division, also resigned, Reuters reported.

An official of the Department of Justice confirmed the resignations of Reuters. It was not clear immediately who would take Sassoon’s place.

Monday, Bove ordered Sassoon to withdraw corruption charges Against Adams, a Democrat who has forged ties with Trump, in what former prosecutors called a sign of political interference.

Reuters reported that Sassoon refused to comply with the board to dismiss the case, and the Trump administration ordered Keller’s office to do so. Keller resigned instead of fulfilling, Reuters reported.

Since Trump began his second term in the White House on January 20, the new administration dismissed more than a dozen prosecutors who pursued criminal charges against him in two cases presented in 2023, arrested all civil rights and environmental litigation, and ordered criminal investigations of the State and local officials who interfere with their hard -line immigration initiatives.

US Attorney General Pam BondiIn it First day at work Last week, he issued a directive that indicates that the lawyers of the Department of Justice who refuse to appear before the court or sign the writings would be disciplined and possibly fired.

The South District has an independence tradition

The Southern District of New York, known for bringing high profile cases in financial crimes, public corruption and national security, has been known for a long time for its independence from the Department of Justice in Washington.

Last September, the predecessor of Sassoon, Damian Williams, appointed by Biden, accused Adams of accepting bribes of Turkish officials as part of a series of high -profile corruption cases, including sentence for trial for the bribery charges of the bribery Former New Jersey Bob Menéndez senator, also a Democrat. .

Menéndez is attractive.

Adams declared himself innocent and has argued that the positions were presented as reprisals for their criticisms of Biden immigration policies. Trump, whose two federal cases were dismissed after his electoral victory but was convicted of separate positions at the state level, has expressed his sympathy by ADAMS.

In a memorandum to Sassoon ordering that Adams’s case be dismissed, Bove said the directive had nothing to do with its merits. Instead, he wrote that the case distracted Adams to help Trump take energetic measures against illegal immigration, one of the main priorities of the Republican President.

A half dozen former SDNY prosecutors told Reuters this week that Bove’s order, himself, a former SDNY prosecutor who also served as Trump’s personal criminal defense lawyer, asked questions about whether the office can remain independent of political pressure during the second mandate of Trump’s White House. .

“The United States prosecutor must have concluded that he could not dismiss these positions while carrying out his oath,” said Harry Sindind, former federal prosecutor of SDNY. “She showed courage and respect for office traditions by deciding to follow an order that apparently saw how unfair.”

Prosecutors in the South District have not yet submitted a formal motion that seeks the dismissed case three days after Bove’s order from the case of the case.

Driscoll, who has been with the department for more than two decades, supervised the money laundering of the criminal division and the asset recovery and public integrity sections.

Keller has been with the department since 2010. He only became the interim chief of the public integrity section recently, after former chief Corey Amundson resigned when the officials designated by Trump tried to reallocate him to a unit centered on immigration.

Contributing: Reuters