Trump Justice Department Moves to Complete 'Openly Corrupt Legal Bailout' of Eric Adams

U.S. President Donald Trump's Justice Department formally moved Friday night to drop charges against Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams after at least seven federal prosecutors resigned, refusing to carry out what's been described as an "openly corrupt legal bailout."

In a new filing signed by veteran prosecutor Edward Sullivan, the Department of Justice requested "dismissal without prejudice of the charges" against Adams, who was indicted last year on multiple counts of wire fraud, bribery, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations after an investigation that began in 2021. "Without prejudice" means the charges could be brought again.

It's an open question how Dale Ho, the judge overseeing the case, will respond. Some experts say he could reject the DOJ's request on the grounds that it is politically motivated.

The Justice Department, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi and Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, has said openly that its push to dismiss the charges against Adams has nothing to do with the "strength of the evidence" against Adams.

Rather, the decision is a remarkably transparent effort to ensure the New York City mayor's full cooperation with Trump's anti-immigrant agenda.

Sullivan reportedly signed the new Justice Department filing under significant duress. According to Reuters, Bove "told the department's career public integrity prosecutors in a meeting on Friday that they had an hour to decide among themselves who would file the motion," signaling they would all be fired if no one capitulated.

"The volunteer was Ed Sullivan, a veteran career prosecutor, who agreed to alleviate pressure on his colleagues in the department's public integrity section," Reuters reported, citing two unnamed sources. "Sullivan's decision came after the attorneys in the meeting contemplated resigning en masse, rather than filing the motion to dismiss... There are approximately 30 attorneys in the Public Integrity Section."

"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."

Brewing opposition inside the Justice Department exploded into public view this week as prosecutors opted to step down rather than carry out the DOJ leadership's orders to seek dismissal of the Adams charges.

Danielle Sassoon, former interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York who announced her departure earlier this week, wrote in a letter to Bondi on February 12 that she was "baffled by the rushed and superficial process" by which the decision to drop the charges against Adams was reached, "in seeming collaboration with Adams' counsel and without my direct input."

In a footnote of the letter, Sassoon described a meeting she and members of her team attended with Bove—who previously served as a member of Trump's personal legal team—and Adams' counsel.

"Adams' attorneys 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 wrote. "Mr. 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."

Shortly before the Justice Department submitted its new filing on Friday, Hagan Scotten, a federal prosecutor assigned to the Adams case, announced his resignation in a scathing letter to Bove.

"No system of ordered liberty can allow the government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives," Scotten wrote. "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."

"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," he added. "But it was never going to be me."

Ahead of the DOJ's filing, Adams appeared on "Fox & Friends" alongside Trump immigration czar Tom Homan in what one observer characterized as a hostage video "broadcast live on national television."

During the segment, Homan smilingly threatened that if Adams "doesn't come through" for the Trump administration, "we won't be sitting on a couch; I'll be in his office, up his butt, saying, 'Where the hell is the agreement we came to?'"

In a separate sitdown with Homan on Thursday, Adams committed to "return federal immigration agents to the Rikers Island jail complex in New York City," Politico reported.

In a column on Friday, The American Prospect's Ryan Cooper and David Dayen wrote that it is "striking just how awesomely gratuitous this all is."

"Nixon sacked his attorney general because the investigation was closing in on him personally and he wanted to escape. It was corrupt, but it made sense as a desperate last-ditch effort," they wrote. "Trump is letting Adams off the hook because he wants a stooge dependent on his goodwill in the mayor's seat while his deportation goons run riot in New York. That's a modest benefit at best; the mayor has limited tools to prevent ICE operations, though he's already offered up Rikers Island, the notorious prison that was due to close, as a migrant detention center."

"And it shows that the most willing enabler of Trump corruption in the entire government is Attorney General Bondi," Cooper and Dayen added. "This is approximately how she ran the Justice Department in Florida, doing favors for her donors and allies while firing attorneys in the department who got in the way, like the prosecutors looking into foreclosure fraud. The Adams case confirms that as long as Bondi is in office, the rule of law will be subordinate to Trump's personal motivations."