The prosecutor who resigned after refusing to leave the case of Adams says he is confident that he committed the crimes

NEW YORK – Manhattan’s main federal prosecutor Danielle Sassoonand five officials from the high -ranking justice department resigned on Thursday after she rejected a order drop corruption charges against the mayor of New York City Eric Adams – An impressive escalation in a one -day confrontation about the Trump administration that prioritizes political objectives on criminal guilt.

Sassoon, a Republican who was an interim lawyer from the United States for the Southern New York District, accused the department of accessing a “Quid Pro quo”, dropping the case to guarantee the help of ADAMS with the Trump Immigration Agenda and said he was “safe” the Democratic mayor committed the crimes explained in his accusation, and even more. Before the confrontation, said Sassoon, prosecutors had prepared to accuse ADAMS destroying evidence and instructed others to destroy evidence and provide false information to the FBI.

“I remain bewildered by the haste and superficial process by which this decision was reached,” Sassoon wrote Trump’s new attorney general, Pam Bondi on Wednesday. Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter.

The attorney general’s attorney general, Trump’s former personal lawyer Emil Bove, ordered the Adams case to withdraw. He told Sassoon, in a letter that accepted his resignation that she was “unable to” just and impartially “reviewing the circumstances of the case. Bove placed the prosecutors of the case with administrative license and said that they and Sassoon would be subject to internal investigations.

In Bove’s letter, Also obtained by the AP, he said that the Department of Justice in Washington would present a motion to leave Adams charges and prohibit the “additional orientation” of the mayor. Until Thursday night, Adams’s case was still active and new paperwork had not been presented.

The Department of Public Integrity Section, which had been asked to take over the case, was also attacked by the resignations.

The interim boss, three deputy directors and an deputy attorney general in the criminal division that supervised the section resigned, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel issues.

The departures amounted to a surprising condemnation of the department’s leadership actions only a few days after a nearby ally of Trump, the former Attorney General of Florida, Pam Bondi, swore as attorney general. Only three weeks after Trump’s second term, the department has been shaken by shots, transfers and resignations.

Adams declared himself innocent last September for charges that, although in his previous role, as president of the Brooklyn County, he accepted more than $ 100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and luxurious travel advantages, such as expensive flight improvements, stays in stages in luxury hotels and even a trip to a bathroom house of people who want to buy their influence. He has denied any irregularity.

Federal agents had also been investigating some of the ADAMS assistants. It was not clear what will happen to that part of the investigation.

In a memorandum on Monday, Bove had ordered Sassoon to drop the case as soon as possible, so that the mayor of the largest city in the United States could help with Trump’s immigration repression and he could himself. Reelection campaign without spending on criminal charges. Adams faces multiple challengers in the June primaries.

On Wednesday, after two days without action or public statements of the Sassoon office, Bondi said he would “Look” why the case had not yet dismissed. That same day, Sassoon presented his objections to leave the case in an eight -page letter to the Attorney General.

Sassoon accused Adams’ lawyers of offering what was equivalent to a “Quid Pro quo”, the mayor’s assistance to the White House on immigration if the case retired, when they met with officials of the Department of Justice in Washington last month .

“It is an impressive and dangerous precedent rewarding the Adams opportunistic and changing commitments about immigration and other political issues with the dismissal of a criminal accusation,” Sassoon wrote.

Adams’s lawyer Alex Spiro said Thursday that the claim of “Quid Pro quo” was a “total lie.”

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

Sassoon’s duel letters in New York and Bove in Washington were not exposed in a clearly personal language. The severity of a dispute over low heat and behind the scene about the management of one of the current cases of most important current public corruption of the Department of Justice.

The result not only threatens to create an irrevocable fissure in the relationship between the headquarters of the department and one of its largest and most prestigious prosecutors, but also runs the risk of strengthening the perception that the administration will use a transactional approach for the Decisions of application of the law.

The United States Prosecutor’s Office for the Southern District of New York has a history of addressing Wall Street, political corruption and international terrorism. He has a tradition of independence from Washington, he earned the nickname of “The Sovereign District.”

Bove’s directive to leave the case 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. Bove, who entered into private practice before meeting with the government, represented Trump as a defense lawyer in his recent criminal cases.

The Bove Memorandum was free from any legal basis for dismissal. His emphasis on political considerations, instead of evaluating the force of evidence, alarmed some career prosecutors who said it was a deviation from long data.

Sassoon, a former employee of the late judge of the Supreme Court Antonin Scalia, was not the prosecutor who accused Adams. That was the then American lawyer Damian Williams, who resigned after Trump won re -election.

Sassoon was appointed interim prosecutor of the United States on January 21, the day after Trump assumed the position, and it was supposed to be a short -term task. Trump said in November that he would name Jay Clayton, former president of the United States Securities and Securities Commission.

This is the second fight of the Department of Justice in five years between Washington and New York to result in a dramatic leadership billing. In 2020, during Trump’s first mandate, then American lawyer Geoffrey Berman was expelled in a night surprise ad. Berman initially refused to resign, creating a brief confrontation with the then Attorney General of the United States, William Barr, but left after his investigations on Trump’s allies would not be disturbed.

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 on January 6, prosecutors had indicated that their investigation remained active, writing in judicial documents that continued “discovering additional criminal conduct from Adams.” __

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