Newsman: The acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon and 5 other top officials resigned Thursday after directive to Justice Department order to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Danielle Sassoon is the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in addition to two officials in Washington.
The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan resigned rather than obey the Justice Department order to let Adams off the hook.
Mayor Damas was accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions and bribes of free or discounted travel from people who wanted to buy his influence.
ABC News reported the details on acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon’s letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi in which she repeatedly urged Bondi to reverse course on dropping the criminal corruption case against Adams.
According to the ABC News report, Danielle Sassoon, a Republican who was interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, accused the department of acceding to a “quid pro quo” – dropping the case to ensure Adams’ help with Trump’s immigration agenda – and said she was “confident” the Democratic mayor committed the crimes spelled out in his indictment, and even more.
“The reasons advanced by Mr. Bove for dismissing the indictment are not ones I can in good faith defend as in the public interest and as consistent with the principles of impartiality and fairness that guide my decision-making,” Sassoon writes.
In the letter, Sassoon repeatedly suggests DOJ leadership including acting Deputy AG Emil Bove were explicitly aware of a ‘quid pro quo’ suggested by Adams’ attorneys that his vocal support of Trump’s immigration policies would be boosted with dismissing the indictment against him.
“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 writes. “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.”
Sassoon’s letter detailed a meeting on Jan. 31 with Bove and counsel for Mayor Adams, where she says Adams’ attorneys put forward “what amounted to a quid pro quo,” after which Bove “admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting’s conclusion.”
“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,” Sassoon says. “Nor will a court likely find that such an improper exchange is consistent with the public interest.”
Before the showdown, Sassoon said, prosecutors had been preparing to charge Adams with destroying evidence and instructing others to destroy evidence and provide false information to the FBI.
Mayor Adams’ attorney Alex Spiro responded in a statement, taking issue with Sassoon’s characterization of rewarding the mayor in exchange for his political cooperation.
“The idea that there was a quid pro quo is a total lie. We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us,” he said. “I don’t know what ‘amounted to’ means. We were asked if the case had any bearing on national security and immigration enforcement and we truthfully answered it did.”
