New York’s top federal prosecutor quit her job on Thursday rather than heed a Justice Department order to drop the case against Mayor Eric Adams—and she made sure to torch the agency’s second-in-command on her way out.
The DOJ appears to be seeing a full-scale revolt after the move, as well as the resignation of two other top officials who oversaw the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, Kevin Driscoll and John Keller, The New York Times reported.
Danielle Sassoon, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, tendered her resignation to Attorney General Pam Bondi in a scathing eight-page letter that tore into acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, a former personal lawyer for President Donald Trump.
On Monday, Bove sent Sassoon a two-page memo instructing her to dismiss the charges against Adams, who cozied up to Trump after becoming New York City’s first indicted mayor last year on charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting a political contribution from a foreign national.
In a copy of the memo published by The New York Times, Bove argued that a dismissal was necessary because the indictment hampered Adams’ ability to implement Trump’s immigration crackdown, possibly threatened the mayoral primary in June, and because Sassoon’s predecessor, Damian Williams, generated prejudicial pretrial publicity.
Bove wrote that the Justice Department “reached this conclusion without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based, which are issues on which we defer to the U.S. Attorney’s Office at this time.”
Sassoon retorted in her letter, also published by the Times, that she did “not see any good-faith basis” for obeying the order: “Because the law does not support a dismissal, and because I am confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged, I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations.”
The New York prosecutor, a registered Republican, said she was “baffled by the rushed and superficial process by which this decision was reached,” noting that it appeared to be made in collaboration with Adams’ counsel and without her input.
Sassoon said it was unclear how a dismissal of the charges would help Adams more effectively aid the Trump administration’s crusade against illegal immigrants. She added that the charges were brought far in advance—nine months before the mayoral primary and over a year before the mayoral election.
“Adams has argued in substance and Mr. Bove appears prepared to concede that Adams should receive leniency for federal crimes solely because he occupies an important public position and can use that position to assist in the administration’s policy priorities,” she wrote.
In a footnote, Sassoon said she attended a Jan. 31 meeting with Bove and Adams’ counsel where the mayor’s lawyers “repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.”
Sassoon said Bove scolded a member of her team for taking notes during that meeting and ordered the collection of those notes when they adjourned.
“It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment,” she wrote. “Nor will a court likely find that such an improper exchange is consistent with the public interest.”
The prosecutor also said Williams, the former U.S. attorney who brought the case against Adams, played a minimal role in the case.
Bove appeared to take issue with Williams launching last December a personal website that he said “closely resembles a campaign website” featuring articles about the Adams case, and writing a January op-ed in City & State New York on the “sad state of New York government.”
“The District Court has already determined that Mr. Williams’s statements have not prejudiced the jury pool,” Sassoon said. “The District Court has also repeatedly explained that there is no evidence that any leaks to the media came from the prosecution team—although there is evidence media leaks came from the defense team.”
Sassoon concluded her letter by stating that she was prepared to offer her resignation if Bondi was unwilling to meet or reconsider the Justice Department’s order to drop the charges.
Bove hit back at the New York prosecutor in his own eight-page letter on Thursday, which was obtained by the Times.
The Justice official accepted Sassoon’s resignation based on her choice “to continue pursuing a politically motivated prosecution despite an express instruction to dismiss the case.”
“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,” he wrote.
Bove escalated the tension a step further by placing the prosecutors who worked on the Adams case on administrative leave and launching an evaluation into Sassoon’s conduct.
Bove then transferred the prosecution of Adams to the Justice Department, but that plan quickly hit a snag.
Matthew Podolsky, who was Sassoon’s deputy, has been named the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
