Newly unsealed memo sheds light on Justice Department's rush to drop NYC
mayor's corruption case
[March 26, 2025]
By MICHAEL R. SISAK
NEW YORK (AP) — New court documents offer a rare, behind-the-scenes look
at how federal prosecutors built and then tried to salvage their
criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams in the face of
unprecedented pressure from President Donald Trump’s Justice Department.
Text messages, emails and comments reflecting internal discussions among
prosecutors were made public Tuesday as the mayor’s case teeters toward
likely dismissal. The documents include a draft memo by the former
interim U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, who resigned in protest on Feb.
13 rather than carry out a directive from a top Justice Department
official to dump the case against Adams.
Sassoon’s draft memo includes frank details, stark observations and a
heavy dose of frustration that did not make it into the final version
that she sent to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Feb. 12.
In it, she wrote that Emil Bove, now the Justice Department’s
third-in-command, had designs on dropping corruption charges against
Adams even before he summoned Sassoon to Washington for what she said
was an alarming and insufficient discussion about the future of the
case.
She said he told her of his thinking on Jan. 27, four days before a
closed-door meeting with prosecutors, Adams’ lawyers and Justice
Department officials.
At that meeting, Sassoon and her team got just 40 minutes to detail the
investigation’s chronology, she wrote. She said Bove ordered one of her
prosecutors to shred his notes and said he did not give her a chance to
address issues critical to the dismissal decision.
Sassoon said Adams’ lawyers were then given 40 minutes to discuss “the
impact of the case on his ability to govern” and assist in Trump’s
immigration crackdown — an argument that has become central to the
Justice Department’s effort to spare Adams from criminal culpability.
“That simply does not suffice,” Sassoon wrote.
Bove formally ordered Sassoon to drop Adams' case on Feb. 10, saying
that it was politically tainted and that it was distracting the mayor, a
Democrat, from helping with Trump's policy agenda.
The Justice Department gave Sassoon's draft memo and other documents to
a court under seal on March 7 as part of an effort to persuade Judge
Dale E. Ho that legally he has no choice but to end the case.
Bove and Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche suggested in a public
court filing that the documents raised questions about the strength of
the case against the mayor and whether Adams was a target of the
so-called weaponization of justice.
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Ho, who has yet to rule on the dismissal request, ordered that the
records be made public by Tuesday after several media outlets sought
their disclosure.
Sassoon said in her Jan. 27 conversation with Bove that she urged
him to hold off on any decision about Adams until Blanche, the No. 2
at the Justice Department, was confirmed by the Senate. Sassoon said
Bove told her that Blanche — his ex-law partner and co-counsel on
Trump’s criminal defense team — was on the “same page” and there was
“no need to wait.”
Asked about Adams’ case at his Feb. 12 confirmation hearing, Blanche
denied knowing any more about it than what the news media was
reporting. The Justice Department has said that Blanche “was not
involved in the Department’s decision-making prior to his
confirmation.”
Adams pleaded not guilty in September to charges alleging he
accepted over $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and travel
perks from people, including a Turkish official, seeking to buy
influence while he was Brooklyn borough president. He faces multiple
challengers in June’s Democratic primary.
Adams and his lawyers have suggested his charges were punishment for
criticizing then-President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
Prosecutors have denied that, noting the investigation began a year
before he spoke out.
Among the issues Sassoon said she wanted to address at the Jan. 31
meeting, had she been given the chance, was Bove’s contention that
recent actions by ex-U.S. Attorney Damian Williams had tarnished the
very case he’d brought.
Sassoon said that while she was “personally disappointed” by
Williams’ actions after stepping down — including a column on public
corruption and a campaign-style website — they didn’t warrant
dismissing the case.
“There are myriad ways to address any arising prejudice or
weaponization well short of a dismissal — steps routinely taken in
other cases with pretrial publicity — but I never had a chance to
raise them,” Sassoon wrote.
Other documents made public Tuesday included texts about case
strategy and edits to a draft of a January court filing. Among them:
a prosecutor’s suggestion to nix mentioning who signed off on Adams’
indictment.
Hagan Scotten, who also resigned in protest last month, wrote:
“There’s no world in which saying the Biden Justice Dept approved
this helps us.”
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