DOJ files to dismiss Eric Adams corruption case after seven prosecutors resign in protest
Emil Bove, the top DOJ official who told prosecutors to dismiss the case against New York's mayor, represented Donald Trump in a criminal trial last year.
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The Department of Justice on Friday filed a motion to dismiss the criminal corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, after seven federal prosecutors quit in protest over the DOJ’s demand to toss the case.
The DOJ asked Manhattan federal court Judge Dale Ho to dismiss the case without prejudice. The filing noted that Adams agreed to the request.
If Ho grants the motion and dismisses the five-count indictment against Adams, the DOJ would have the right to refile the criminal charges against the mayor in the future.
That right has raised concerns that President Donald Trump will have significant leverage over Adams to get the Democratic mayor to cooperate with the Republican president’s policies on immigration and other issues.
Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, who resigned Thursday after refusing to follow an order by Bove to file the dismissal motion, cited that concern in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“Dismissing without prejudice and with the express option of again indicting Adams in the future creates obvious ethical problems, by implicitly threatening future prosecution if Adams’s cooperation with enforcing the immigration laws proves unsatisfactory to the Department,” Sassoon had written.
Shortly after Sassoon resigned, Adams agreed Thursday to allow federal immigration agents into the city’s massive jail complex on Riker’s Island.
Friday’s dismissal motion says that acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove concluded that continuing prosecuting Adams would “interfere with the defendant’s ability to govern in New York City, which poses unacceptable threats to public safety, national security, and related federal immigration initiatives and policies.”
The court filing also said Bove concluded the dismissal was necessary “because of the appearances of impropriety and risks of interference” with New York’s primary and mayoral elections this year.
“The Acting Deputy Attorney General reached that conclusion based on, among other things, review of a website maintained by a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York [Damian Williams] and an op-ed published by that former U.S. Attorney,” the filing said.
The dismissal request was signed by Bove, and by Antoinette Bacon, a supervisory official of the DOJ’s criminal division in Washington, D.C., and Edward Sullivan, a senior prosecutor in the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section.
Earlier Friday, Bove promised promotions to leadership positions for remaining prosecutors in the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section who would agree to sign a motion to dismiss Adams’ case.
Bove gave the prosecutors a deadline of one hour to provide him with the names of two attorneys who would sign the motion, according to NBC News.
