The prosecutor resigned after refusing to leave the Adams case | News, sports, jobs

New York – The main federal prosecutor in Manhattan resigned on Thursday after rejecting an order from the Department of Justice to withdraw corruption charges against the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. Before quitting smoking, Danielle Sassoon told President Donald Trump’s new attorney general who was “sure” Adams had committed crimes.

Two senior officials of the Department of Justice also resigned after the leadership of the department moved to take control of the case. The Attorney General’s Attorney General, Trump’s former personal lawyer Emil Bove, who ordered that the case of Adams withdraw, said in a letter that accepts Sassoon’s resignation that the Department of Justice in Washington would present a motion for launch the charges and the bar “More addressing” of the Democratic Mayor.

Sassoon, a Republican who serves as an interim prosecutor of the United States for the Southern District of New York, announced his resignation in an email to his staff. The measure, confirmed by an office spokesman, occurred after a day confrontation between Manhattan prosecutor and his superiors in Washington.

The duel letters of the officials in New York and Washington exposed in clearly personal language the seriousness of a dispute over low heat and behind the scene about the management of one of the most significant current public corruption cases of the government. The result not only threatens to create an irrevocable fissure in the relationship between the department’s headquarters and its most prestigious fiscal offices, but also runs the risk of strengthening the perception that the Trump administration will use a transactional approach to application decisions of the law.

“I remain bewildered by the rushed and superficial process by which this decision was reached”, Sassoon wrote on Wednesday in a letter to the Attorney General of the United States, Pam Bondi, a copy of which was obtained by Associated Press. Sassoon urged Bondi to reconsider the directive to leave the case of Adams.

With Sassoon, refusing to comply with the Trump administration order, the Department of Public Integrity was asked to take care of the case, according to a person familiar with the matter. Two senior officials who supervise the unit, including the interim boss, resigned in response, according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel issues.

The outputs occurred days after Bove ordered federal prosecutors in New York to end the case against Adams, who was accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions and free travel bribes or with a discount of people who wanted to buy their influence. He declared himself innocent.

Bove said in a memorandum on Monday that the case must be dismissed so that Adams can help the repression of immigration of President Donald Trump and the campaign for free re -election to face criminal charges. Primary is four months away and Adams has multiple challengers.

Bove scolded Sassoon in a letter accepting his resignation. He wrote that she was “Unable to just and impartially review the circumstances of this prosecution.” Bove said he would open internal investigations on her “conduct” and that of the prosecutors who worked in the Adam case. They will be placed in “Administrative license out of service” said.

Bove had ordered Sassoon to drop the case of Adams as soon as “practicable,” But there have been no public statements or actions of the Prosecutor’s Office. Wednesday, Bondi said she “examine” Why the case had not yet dismissed. Until Thursday afternoon, the charges remained in place.

In his letter to Bondi, Sassoon accused Adams’s lawyers to repeatedly and explicitly offer what was equivalent to a “compensation” During a meeting with the Department of Justice last month. She wrote that the lawyers had offered the mayor’s help with the priorities of application of the immigration of the Trump administration if the case were dismissed.

“It is an impressive and dangerous precedent reward Adams opportunistic and changing commitments on immigration and other political issues with the dismissal of a criminal accusation.” Sassoon wrote. She calls the supposed offer “An inadequate offer of immigration application assistance in exchange for a dismissal of your case.”

In an email, Adams’s lawyer Alex Spiro said that the accusation of a quid pro quo was a “Total lie.”

“We did not offer anything and the department did not ask us” Spiro said. “They asked us if the case had any relationship with national security and the application of immigration and, honestly, we replied that.”

The Department’s decision to end the Adams case due to political considerations, instead of the force or weakness of the evidence, alarmed some career prosecutors who said it was a deviation from long -standing norms.

Bove’s directive was even more notable because Bove had been a prosecutor and supervisor for a long time in the South District and because department leaders are historically reluctant to intervene in cases where charges have been presented.

The Bove Memorandum also moved away from any legal basis for dismissal despite the decades of the department of the department by issuing that collection decisions must be guided by facts, evidence and law.

Sassoon, a former employee of the late judge of the United States Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia, was not the prosecutor who presented the case against Adams last year. That was the then American lawyer Damian Williams, who resigned after Trump’s electoral victory in November.

Sassoon had only been used to serve as a US prosecutor on January 21, the day after Trump assumed the position.

His role was intended to be temporary. In November, Trump nominated Jay Clayton, former president of the United States Stock Exchange and Securities Commission, for the position, an appointment that must be confirmed by the Senate. That has not yet happened.

The Southern District of New York is among the offices of larger and more prominent prosecutors in the United States, with a long history of addressing the embezzlement of Wall Street, political corruption and international terrorism. It has a tradition of independence from Washington, something that has won the nickname “The Sovereign District”.

This is the second fight of the Department of Justice in five years among Washington and New York officials to result in a dramatic leadership billing.

In 2020, William Barr, who served as one of Trump’s general prosecutors during his first term, expelled Geoffrey Berman, the United States prosecutor in Manhattan, in a night surprise announcement. Berman initially refused to give up his position, creating a brief confrontation with Barr, but he did it after the assurance that his investigations on Trump allies would not be disturbed.

Adams was accused in September for charges that, although he worked as president of Brooklyn Borough, he accepted more than $ 100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and luxurious travel advantages, such as expensive flight improvements, stages in luxury hotels and even a trip to a bathroom.

The accusation said that a Turkish official who helped facilitate trips leaned on Adams by favors, including asking him to press the Fire Department to let a diplomatic building with newly built 36 floors open on time for a visit planned by the president of Turkey.

The prosecutors said they had evidence that Adams personally ordered the political assistants to request foreign donations and disguise them to help the campaign to qualify for a city program that provides a generous and publicly financed party for small donations in dollars. According to Federal Law, foreign citizens are prohibited from contributing to US electoral campaigns.

As recently as January 6, prosecutors had indicated that their investigation remained active, writing in the judicial documents that continued “Discover additional criminal behavior of Adams.”

Bove said in his memorandum that the officials of the Department of Justice in Washington had not evaluated the evidence in the case before deciding that it should be withdrawn, at least until after the elections of the Mayor’s Office arrived in November.

But he criticized “Recent public actions” By Williams he said he had “It threatened the integrity of the procedures, even by increasing prior advertising to the harmful trial.” Williams has not talked publicly about the Adams case since his resignation, but wrote an editorial who denounced corruption in politics.

Federal agents had also been investigating other Adams assistants. It was not clear what will happen to that side of the probe.