Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove downplayed the case as “nothing particularly exotic,” and the full portent of this black-suited Trump apparatchik’s words in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday did not immediately sink in.
After arguing that the government should be allowed to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams to facilitate his cooperation with the Trump immigration agenda, Bove took it a step further. He actually said the government would be willing to overlook crimes by other public officials to further its political interests.
“Like the commissioner, for example?” Manhattan federal Judge Dale Ho asked.
“Yes, absolutely,” Bove replied.
Bove also really said the government might nix charges even against someone who was just running for public office if the case threatened to influence an election in an unfavorable way.
“It applies to candidates,” Bove affirmed.
The deputy attorney general made those statements while sitting alone at a table in Courtroom 308 in the old Manhattan federal courthouse. He had prompted the resignation of the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, last week when he pressed her to go along with what she felt was an unacceptable quid pro quo where charges against Adams would be dropped so he could assist in Trump’s effort to round up undocumented immigrants. And the charges against Adams would be dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning they would be reinstated if the government so desired, thereby ensuring his continued cooperation.
Bove had then pressured other prosecutors to execute his Adams plan, and seven had quit. Among them was Hagan Scotten, who ran the year-long Adams investigation that resulted in the mayor being indicted on five felony counts for bribery and wire fraud. Scotten tendered his resignation in a letter to Bove.
“Any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way,” Scotten wrote. “If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.”
Lest anyone imagine that Scotten is a member of the deep state, he was in the Army for nine years, receiving two Bronze Stars while serving three combat tours with the special forces in Iraq.
Bove next gathered the public corruption prosecutors in Washington, D.C., and gave them an hour for one of them to sign the necessary document or all of them would be fired. That would have jeopardized as many as 200 investigations, and to forestall that disaster, Edward Sullivan, senior litigation counsel for the Department of Justice’s public integrity section, finally agreed to do it. An Ohio prosecutor, Antoinette Bacon, no doubt scored some points with the Trump crew by joining him.
Bove then signed the papers himself, as he could have at the outset. And after trying to muscle others into joining him, he stood solo in New York. There was definitely something exotic about the sight of this solitary senior figure representing the might of the Department of Justice as conceived by Trump.
Bove had been an assistant district attorney in this same district for a decade before leaving to go into private practice and representing Trump during his porn star hush money case in Manhattan Supreme Court just up the street from Wednesday’s hearing. And now he was back, powered by Trump and facing the judge as a mono-minion on a mission.
“That’s why I was here today, so you could look me in the eye,” he told the judge.
Bove was at moments arrogant to the point of being disrespectful. Ho noted that in his papers Bove said there were only “appearances” of impropriety in the investigation of Adams.
“I used the word ‘appearances’ because I believe that’s sufficient,” Bove said.
Bove became a voice of the new world order as he added, “There is no basis to question my representations to this court.”
At one point, the judge put Adams under oath and asked him whether anybody had pressured him into agreeing to having the charges dropped.
“No,” Adams replied.
Bove translated that to mean that Adams had affirmed there had been no improper quid pro quo. He indicated that the prosecutors who refused to go along with the dismissal may find themselves being investigated, along with those who brought the case.
The judge may or may not agree that there was no quid pro quo. And, even if he concludes there was, he began the hearing by saying that judges had very little leeway when the prosecution asks to drop charges. Should the judge order the charges reinstated, one question would be: Who is supposed to prosecute the case?
The case that Bove describes as just “a standard exercise of prosecutorial discretion” is in fact unprecedented.
The judge reserved decision. Bove left the courtroom alone save for a bodyguard. He afterwards issued a statement.
“I went to New York today to show the men and women of the Justice Department as well as the American people that I am personally committed to our shared fight: ending weaponized government, stopping the invasion of criminal illegal aliens, and eliminating drug cartels and transnational gangs from our homeland,” he said.
“For those who do not support our critical mission, I understand there are templates for resignation letters available on the websites of the New York Times and CNN.”
Bove headed back to Washington, D.C., where the government may now be willing to ignore crimes not only by public officials, but also those only running for office if they further the administration’s political agenda.
In what may or may not be a coincidence, Bove’s liege had demonstrated his power to New York with a post just as the hearing was starting.
“CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”
