Senior DOJ officials resign after order to drop case against NYC Mayor Eric Adams
New York City Mayor Eric Adams attends President Donald Trump's 2025 inauguration. (Photo by Tom Brenner/The Washington Post)
Updated: The top federal prosecutor in New York and a team of Justice Department officials in Washington resigned Thursday after a demand by the Trump administration to drop corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, people familiar with the resignations said.
Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, told Attorney General Pam Bondi in a letter that she could not in good faith ask a judge to drop the charges against Adams, “because the law does not support a dismissal, and because I am confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged.”
Kevin Driscoll and John D. Keller, senior officials who oversaw public corruption cases in Washington, submitted their resignations also, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it. Three prosecutors who worked with Keller in the Public Integrity Section left too, people briefed on the matter said, gutting a relatively small division that investigates public officials and election crimes.
The departures came as acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove said he was moving the Adams case to Washington in an effort to get the charges dismissed. They represent an extraordinary show of resistance by veteran career officials to the effort to suspend the case, including at least one prosecutor—Sassoon—who has participated in events with the conservative Federalist Society and clerked for conservative judges including Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Sassoon joined the U.S. attorney’s office in 2016 and made her mark leading some of its most high-profile cases. She helped to lead the office’s prosecution of FTX and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March for orchestrating a massive fraud on customers.
A graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School, Sassoon also prosecuted Larry Ray, who subjected students from Sarah Lawrence College to years of physical and emotional abuse in a cultlike atmosphere.
Bove responded to Sassoon’s decision with a sharp and forceful letter accusing her of insubordination.
“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,” he wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Washington Post.
Bove also said in his letter to Sassoon that he would place the two New York prosecutors “principally responsible” for the Adams case on administrative leave—adding that they should contact him if they are willing to ask a judge to dismiss the charges, but were “prohibited from doing so by you or the management of your office.” He said Justice Department officials would investigate the conduct of Sassoon, 38, and her team to decide if they should be fired.
Driscoll, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s criminal division, is a longtime veteran of the department and had a portfolio that included the Public Integrity Section. Keller was acting chief of that section. The other three people from the section were part of Keller’s management team, a person familiar with the matter said.
Adams was charged in September with wire fraud, bribery and seeking illegal campaign donations. Prosecutors alleged he had problematic relationships with wealthy foreigners and accepted travel upgrades, luxury hotel rooms and other perks from Turkish businesspeople and at least one government official. He pleaded not guilty and has resisted calls to resign.
In his memo ordering that prosecutors seek to drop the charges, Bove said a potential trial would come too close to when Adams is seeking reelection and that the case could hinder his ability to focus on fighting crime and illegal immigration.
It is highly unusual for top leadership in the Justice Department to intervene in a pending case—and to cite what are essentially political considerations, rather than concerns about evidence or the prosecution strategy—as reasons to drop the charges.
Bove, a former personal defense lawyer for Trump who previously worked as a prosecutor in the Southern District, wrote in his memo that his decision was not based on “the strength of the evidence or the legal theories.”
But in his letter accepting Sassoon’s resignation, he said he had carefully reviewed the case files and met with prosecutors before determining that the charges should be dismissed because they hinged on “extremely aggressive” legal theories and are the product of a Justice Department that has been politically weaponized.
Before becoming the acting U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon was a clerk for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. (Photo from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York via AP)In her letter, Sassoon described a Jan. 31 meeting with Bove and Adams’s attorneys. She said the mayor’s lawyers “repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo,” saying Adams could help with the Justice Department’s immigration priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.
“Rather than be rewarded, Adams’s advocacy should be called out for what it is: an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case,” Sassoon wrote. “Although Mr. Bove disclaimed any intention to exchange leniency in this case for Adams’s assistance in enforcing federal law, that is the nature of the bargain laid bare in Mr. Bove’s memo.”
Alex Spiro, a lawyer for the mayor, called the accusation “a total lie.”
“We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us,” Spiro said in an email.
The Southern District, which Sassoon was leading while Trump’s nominee for the post awaited Senate confirmation, has long prided itself on independence from Washington and a bold approach to public corruption investigations.
In ordering prosecutors to drop the charges, Bove said they should be dismissed without prejudice, which means the indictment in theory could be brought again in the future. Some of Adams’s political opponents, along with immigration advocates in New York, have said that possibility is a way of pressuring Adams to cooperate with immigration enforcement.
New York has historically been a sanctuary jurisdiction, with local officials declining to join federal enforcement efforts and local laws allowing driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants and other protections. On Wednesday, Bondi announced a lawsuit against New York state officials focused on one of those laws.
Adams has been openly critical of an expensive influx of undocumented migrants into New York during the Biden administration. He met with Trump before his inauguration and attended those festivities, and has made other shows of support for the new president.
On Thursday, Adams met with Trump’s top border adviser, Tom Homan. He later issued a statement saying federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would be “able to operate on Rikers Island,” the city’s main jail complex, and that agents would focus on correctional investigations related to gangs and violence. He also said there may be an infusion of New York Police Department detectives in federal task forces also focused on gang activity.
Last week, on her first day leading the department, Bondi demanded “zealous advocacy” of the president’s agenda from the Justice Department’s 10,000 lawyers, threatening termination if they declined to sign a brief or appear in court because of their personal beliefs.
Bove cited that directive in his letter to Sassoon. He also referred to Trump’s executive order on “Ending The Weaponization Of The Federal Government,” saying: “Your Office was not exempted from the President’s policy or the Attorney General’s memorandum.”
“The Justice Department will not tolerate the insubordination and apparent misconduct reflected in the approach that you and your office have taken in this matter,” Bove wrote.
Bove alleged that former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams, who brought the charges against Adams, had accelerated the investigation after Adams criticized President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
Sassoon noted in her resignation letter that the Adams investigation began before Williams led the office.
Related articles:
More prosecutors resign over order to drop Eric Adams corruption case
Meet the acting US attorney who quit over Eric Adams case
See also:
The New York Times: Danielle Sassoon’s Letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Annotated
The New York Times: The Letter From Emil Bove Accepting Danielle Sassoon’s Resignation, Annotated
The New York Times: Read the Resignation Letter From Hagan Scotten
Last updated on Feb. 14 at 10:48 a.m. to add a link to Hagan Scotten’s resignation letter.
Stein reported from Washington. Jacobs reported from New York. Jeremy Roebuck in Washington contributed to this report.
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