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eric adams
Judge Dismisses Adams Corruption Case But Aims to Kill Trump's Leverage Over NYC Mayor
One legal expert called Judge Dale Ho's move a "major smackdown for DOJ's unsavory behavior."
Apr 02, 2025
A federal judge in Manhattan dismissed the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday but also tried to ensure that going forward, the Trump administration cannot use the charges as leverage over the Democrat—who had agreed to help with the White House's mass deportation agenda in exchange for what opponents blasted as an "openly corrupt legal bailout."
In February, just weeks after Republican President Donald Trump returned to office, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) instructed prosecutors to drop federal charges against Adams, triggering widespread outrage over the attempted "illegal quid pro quo," as some congressional critics have called it.
"DOJ's motion states that dismissal of this case is justified for several reasons, including because 'continuing these proceedings would interfere with" the mayor's ability to govern, thereby threatening 'federal immigration initiatives and policies,'" Judge Dale Ho, appointed to the Southern District of New York by former President Joe Biden, wrote Wednesday in a 78-page opinion and order.
Ho explained that "a critical feature of DOJ's motion is that it seeks dismissal without prejudice—that is, DOJ seeks to abandon its prosecution of Mayor Adams at this time, while reserving the right to reinitiate the case in the future. DOJ does not seek to end this case once and for all. Rather, its request, if granted, would leave Mayor Adams under the specter of reindictment at essentially any time, and for essentially any reason. The court declines, in its limited discretion under Rule 48(a), to endorse that outcome."
"Instead, it dismisses this case with prejudice—meaning that the government may not bring the charges in the Indictment against Mayor Adams in the future," he continued. "In light of DOJ's rationales, dismissing the case without prejudice would create the unavoidable perception that the mayor's freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration, and that he might be more beholden to the demands of the federal government thanto the wishes of his own constituents. That appearance is inevitable, and it counsels in favor of dismissal with prejudice."
Ho noted that "various groups that have submitted friend-of-the-court briefs urge this court to go further and deny DOJ's motion altogether, arguing that the reasons DOJ has given to justify dismissing this case are unsubstantiated or contrary to the public interest. The court ultimately declines their invitation to deny the motion. But it concludes that many of their arguments have merit."
However, as the judge detailed, he ultimately did not deny the DOJ's motion for two reasons: "The first is that a court's principal role in deciding a motion of this nature is to protect the rights of the defendant... The second and perhaps more fundamental reason is that a court, if it were so inclined, would have no way to compel the government to prosecute a case in circumstances like those presented here."
BREAKING: major smackdown for DOJ’s unsavory behavior in dismissing the Eric Adams case Judge Ho follows our @sddaction.bsky.social brief with @ldadorg.bsky.social to only logical conclusion: Dismissal WITH prejudice statedemocracydefenders.org/wp-content/u... Fight will continue & so will we!
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— Norm Eisen (@normeisen.bsky.social) April 2, 2025 at 10:47 AM
As The Citypointed out, "The dismissal comes just weeks before the June 24 mayor primary and a day before the mayor is required to file petition signatures his campaign is collecting to get on the ballot."
In the crowded Democratic primary contest, Adams' challengers include former Gov. Andrew Cuomo—who resigned in 2021 in the face of sexual harassment allegations he has denied—and state Rep. Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a Democratic socialist who represents New York's 36th Assembly District in Queens.
A 2024 Democratic National Convention delegate known as Candidly Tiff on social media said Wednesday that "the judge actually helped Eric Adams with this ruling. He should be thankful the [White House] can no longer dangle this case over his big head. Should be a sign for him to walk away from politics but his ego is too damn big."
The development also sparked calls for Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James to bring state charges against Adams. Attorney Tristan Snell said that she "can and should" do so "immediately."
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'Disgraceful': Trump DOJ Guts Unit That Targets Corruption by Public Officials
The president, said one expert, "is for corruption and is undermining any federal efforts to combat it."
Mar 12, 2025
Weeks after the Trump administration pressured the U.S. government's top anti-corruption prosecutors to drop charges of bribery and other federal crimes against New York Mayor Eric Adams, the Public Integrity Section at the Department of Justice is set to be almost entirely dismantled.
As NBC Newsreported late Tuesday, the office tasked with investigating and prosecuting allegations of corruption by elected officials will soon be disbanded, with only a few Public Integrity Section employees remaining and the unit no longer directly handling investigations and corruption cases.
Prosecutors will be reassigned elsewhere in the DOJ and pending cases will be moved to U.S. attorneys' offices across the country—signaling that partisan political appointees instead of civil servants who have worked under both Republican and Democratic presidents will now oversee corruption cases.
The move was denounced as "disgraceful" by political scientist Norman Ornstein and as evidence that President Donald Trump is "for corruption" by Noah Bookbinder, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
Last month, several officials resigned from the Public Integrity Section after objecting to what they said was a proposed "quid pro quo" under which Adams would assist with the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts if charges against him were dropped.
Emil Bove, then the acting deputy attorney general, gathered the unit's attorneys and pushed them to sign a filing asking for the charges to be dismissed. Edward Sullivan, a senior litigation counsel, signed the filing to save his colleagues' jobs.
The Public Integrity Section, which also oversees election-related crimes and campaign finance offenses, has prosecuted both Democratic officials, including former Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, and Republicans such as former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.
Trump has claimed the Justice Department under former President Joe Biden conducted politically motivated investigations into his handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results—even though the cases were handed over to Special Counsel Jack Smith when Trump announced his 2024 campaign.
Now Trump's dismantling of the anti-corruption unit, former DOJ counterintelligence official David Laufman toldNBC, raises "serious questions about whether future investigations and prosecutions will be motivated by improper partisan considerations."
"The only reasonable interpretation of this extraordinary action," said Laufman, "is that the administration wants to transfer responsibility for public corruption cases from career attorneys at Main Justice to political appointees heading U.S. attorneys' offices."
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House Dems Push Trump AG for Answers on 'Illegal Quid Pro Quo' With Eric Adams
"The DOJ has strayed far from its principles of equal justice under the law by dismissing a serious criminal public corruption matter in exchange for assistance with the White House's immigration priorities."
Mar 03, 2025
Senior House Democrats on Monday demanded that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi hand over information about the Trump administration's "lawless order that federal prosecutors move to dismiss the public corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams as part of a corrupt bargain to buy the mayor's obedience in immigration enforcement."
Calling on Bondi to "immediately end the cover-ups and retaliations within the Department of Justice (DOJ)," House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and House Oversight Subcommittee Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) wrote in a letter to the attorney general:
Last month, troubling reports emerged about the Trump administration's demand that federal prosecutors move to dismiss the serious public corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams as part of a blatant and illegal quid pro quo to secure the mayor's loyal assistance in executing the Trump administration's mass arrest and deportation policies. Not only did the Department of Justice attempt to pressure career prosecutors into carrying out this illegal quid pro quo, it appears that acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove was personally engaged in a cover-up by destroying evidence and retaliating against career prosecutors who refused to follow his illegal and unethical orders.
Adams had faced five federal felony charges including alleged wire fraud, bribery, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. According to a September 2024 indictment, the Democrat "sought and accepted improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him" as it became clear in 2021 that he would be elected.
On February 14, Trump's DOJ formally moved to drop the charges against Adams without prejudice, meaning they could be brought again. This prompted the resignation of seven federal prosecutors, and, on February 17, four of Adams' eight deputy mayors.
Raskin's office said Monday that federal prosecutors' resignation letters, "including those by Danielle Sassoon, a staunch conservative, former law clerk to [U.S. Supreme Court] Justice Antonin Scalia, and Trump's interim United States attorney for [the Southern District of New York], and Hagan Scotten, a former law clerk to both [Supreme Court] Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts, revealed a stunning account of a corrupt bargain the DOJ struck with Mayor Adams, as well as an attempted cover-up."
Sassoon described a January 31 meeting she and colleagues attended with Bove at which "Adams' attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the [DOJ's] enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed," and added that 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."
Subsequently, Adams reportedly told New York City officials to refrain from criticizing Trump. After meeting with Trump "border czar" Tom Homan, Adams on February 13 announced an executive order to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to operate at Rikers Island, New York City's largest jail, for the first time in decades.
The following day Adams and Homan appeared together on Fox News. Although the two men were seen laughing it up, Homan said that if the mayor didn't "come through" for the Trump administration, "we won't be sitting on this couch, I'll be in his office, up his butt, saying, where the hell is the agreement we came to?"
Thinly veiled Homan warning to Adams: “If he doesn’t come through … I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, Where the hell is the agreement we came to” pic.twitter.com/Pq0msJXZGb
— Emily Ngo (@emilyngo) February 14, 2025
Raskin and Crockett are seeking all notes related to the January 31 meeting, all communications between the White House and DOJ regarding the Adams case, and other information.
"For our justice system to function, 'legal judgments of the Department of Justice must be impartial and insulated from political influence,'" the lawmakers asserted. "As Ms. Sassoon said in her letter, our system depends on prosecutors pursuing justice 'without favor to the wealthy or those who occupy important public office.' Here, the DOJ has strayed far from its principles of equal justice under the law by dismissing a serious criminal public corruption matter in exchange for assistance with the White House's immigration priorities."
"Unfortunately, this is yet another example of the Trump DOJ allowing criminals to go free—whether they assaulted police officers, sold drugs to the community, or are corrupt politicians—as long as the criminals pledge loyalty to President Trump," the pair added.
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