Federal judge Dale Ho isn’t ready to dismiss the charges against Mayor Eric Adams just yet. Instead, he appointed an outside lawyer to review the case and present arguments for why the federal corruption charges should not be dropped. That means the Adams legal saga is still far from over. On Thursday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said that she won’t remove Adams from office “at this time,” and instead called for new oversight and legal guardrails to limit his power. All of this comes after the mayor’s alleged quid quo pro deal with the Trump Justice Department, the subsequent resignation of seven federal prosecutors, four deputy mayors, and widespread calls for Adams to step down or be removed. Below are the latest developments.
And he’s after Adams’s base, Politico New York reports:
The scandal-scarred Cuomo and his confidants have been making overtures to crucial New York City labor and business leaders, wooing Black and Orthodox Jewish voters and making inroads with the influential New York Post — amounting to a multi-pronged effort to capitalize on Adams’ pillars of political support as the mayor’s career withers.
The former New York governor is expected to enter the race within the next two weeks, as candidates begin to gather petitions for the June 24 Democratic primary and unions start holding endorsement screenings. Adams, whose legal case continues, has yet to establish a reelection campaign[.]
He’s carrying on.
It’s not clear whether city and state legislators will back her proposals.
“As with all legislation, we will review with the conference,” said a spokesperson for Senate majority leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.
Government reform group Reinvent Albany, which has called for removing Mayor Adams from office, says it opposes the governor’s plan to contain Adams — arguing that it intrudes on NYC home rule.
The group supports a few of the individual proposals but not the overall package.
Ho deferred his ruling on the DOJ charges, and appointed an independent attorney, former U.S. solicitor general Paul Clement to review the case and present arguments opposing the dismissal. This means it will be weeks before the matter is resolved.
Explained Judge Ho in his order: “Normally, courts are aided in their decision-making through our system of adversarial testing, which can be particularly helpful in cases presenting unusual fact patterns or in case of great public importance.” But in this case, he wrote, “there has been no adversarial testing of the government’s position,” and that’s why he assigned an independent attorney, “to assist the court’s decision-making.”
Clement has represented conservative causes before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The judge has ordered both parties, whose briefs are due March 7, to address several issues, including the legal standard for dismissing the charges, whether additional steps should be taken, as well as whether they should be dismissed with or without prejudice.
The judge also indefinitely postponed Adams’s trial, which was set to begin in April.
“After careful consideration, I have determined that I will not commence removal proceedings at this time,” the governor said in a Thursday afternoon press conference. Instead, she called for new state and city legislation establishing temporary legal safeguards to limit the mayor’s power.
“My strong belief is that the will of the voters and the supremacy and sanctity of democratic elections preclude me from any other action,” Hochul said. But she also left open the possibility that she could exercise her power to remove Adams later. “I will never surrender power that I have,” she said.
Hochul’s proposal otherwise matching the reports that emerged earlier Thursday, and would all need to be done via new legislation:
• A special inspector general to monitor the mayor and city affairs.
• New independent authority for the New York City comptroller, public advocate, and city council speaker to file lawsuits against the federal government.
• Additional funding for state comptroller for expanded oversight of city affairs.
• These “extraordinary” measures would expire at the end of the year, unless renewed.
Or is it a power grab, since these new measures may be for Adams and his successors?
Hochul will seek to limit Adams’s power with legal guardrails and more oversight — but she won’t try to oust him
The New York Times reports, per a pair of sources:
While Ms. Hochul will say she is not prepared to overturn the will of voters, she is expected to lay out a suite of new oversight measures designed to empower other state and city officials to keep careful watch over Mr. Adams’s team at City Hall.
The steps Ms. Hochul plans to propose include creating a new state deputy inspector general dedicated to New York City; establishing a fund for the city comptroller, public advocate and City Council speaker to hire outside counsel to sue the federal government if the mayor is unwilling to do so; and granting additional funds for the state’s comptroller to scrutinize city finances.
The governor also wants to impose a new rule that would bar the mayor from firing the head of the city’s Department of Investigation without the approval of the state inspector general.
NY1 reports that the governor’s plan will include city and state legislation.
The White House is claiming Adams granting ICE access to Riker’s Island as a win in a new message it sent out today — but there is no record of Adams actually ordering that:
Rolling Stone highlights a February 3 letter that Adams’s lawyers sent to deputy U.S. attorney general Emil Bove:
“As his trial grows near, it will be untenable for the Mayor to be the ever-present partner that DHS [the Department of Homeland Security] needs to make New York City as safe as possible,” Alex Spiro and Bill Burck wrote in a letter to Bove, memorializing their meeting of January 31 and advocating “strongly in favor of dismissal.” …
Adams wanted to be helpful to the Trump administration as it “seeks to aggressively enforce immigration laws and remove undocumented immigrants,” they continued. But “Mayor Adams’s political muscle is weakened by an indictment.”
“Leaders of various city agencies such as the NYPD,” the lawyers went on, “serve at the Mayor’s pleasure and are subject to removal by him. Yet, to the extent that city officials perceive the Mayor to be politically weakened, on the ropes, or not long for the office, he loses some ability to make sure officials and their agencies are complying.”
Bove issued a statement, touting his appearance in federal court as a sign of his commitment toward the fight to end “weaponized government,” among other priorities. But he directed a clear warning to those in the Justice Department who find themselves at odds with his positions.
“For those who do not support our critical mission, I understand there are templates for resignation letters available on the websites of the New York Times and CNN,” he said, per NBC News.
Bove denied Sassoon’s allegations that the deal with the federal government amounted to a quid pro quo during the hearing, telling Judge Ho that Adams’s responses to his earlier questions disputed those claims.
However, Bove indicated that he believed that the motion should stand even if such an agreement took place. “I don’t concede that even if there was a quid pro quo, there would be a problem with the motion,” he said, per the Daily News.
Adams left the courthouse and took no questions from reporters. Video from Fox5 NY:
On BlueSky, legal commentator and former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman predicted that Judge Ho will ultimately let the dismissal motion pass:
Hearing finished. Judge Ho says he will rule soon but not now. Expect a written opinion expressing some incredulity and distress at DOJ position but then permitting the dismissal without prejudice.
As the hearing drew to a close, Bove urged the judge to rule promptly so “the mayor can get back to work unhindered, unburdened, not having to deal with this case, and protect the city.”
But as the Daily News reports, Judge Ho indicated his plans to hold back on a final decision for now:
Per reports, Judge Ho asked Bove if he’s able to consider his memo to interim U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon that ordered her to drop Adams’s case. Bove said no, adding that case law prevents him from doing so. “There is no basis to question my representations to this court,” he said, per the New York Times.
Judge Ho asked Bove about the federal government’s basis for the motion, which included the “appearance of impropriety” from the prosecution as well as the indictment’s impact on Adams’s ability to govern. Bove indicated that the motivations of the prosecutors are currently the subject of multiple investigations in the department. Reporter Adam Klasfeld has more:
Bove also said he believed that the “ability to govern” argument could be applied to other positions such as a police commissioner. Per Politico:
Emil Bove, the acting U.S. deputy attorney general, confirmed to Judge Ho that the federal government’s motion to dismiss the case “without prejudice” would allow them to refile charges against Adams down the line. Politico has more:
Per reports in the room, Adams told the judge that he understands that the charges could be filed against him in the future.
Judge Dale Ho began the afternoon’s proceedings, calling the situation surrounding Adams’s case “somewhat unusual.” Law360 and the Daily News report that the mayor was sworn in and asked a series of questions to determine that his consent to the dismissal motion was voluntary:
Mayor Adams arrived at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse in Manhattan to a loud chorus of boos from protesters awaiting his arrival outside. The Daily News has video from the scene:
When the Justice Department directed Manhattan prosecutors to dismiss Mayor Adams’s pending bribery case, they were instructed to do so “without prejudice,” meaning that the charges could potentially be revived against him in the future.
But NBC New York reports that the mayor’s legal team and Justice Department officials recently discussed the potential of dismissing the case “with prejudice,” which would allow Adams to avoid those charges permanently. The two teams are set to appear in court Wednesday afternoon before Judge Dale Ho, who will have the final say on the government’s motion to dismiss.
Chad Mizelle, the chief of staff at the Justice Department, took to social media to defend the federal government’s decision to drop Adams’s case ahead of the scheduled court hearing Wednesday. In the series of posts, Mizelle cited the Justice Department’s many failed attempts at charging public officials with corruption and suggested that the prosecutors’ assertion that Adams received benefits in the form of campaign contributions could run afoul of the First Amendment:
While calls for Adams’s resignation or removal continue to mount, the Daily News reports that a group of Black lawmakers has signed a letter urging Governor Hochul against removing the mayor from office. In the letter, the legislators argue that there is no “constitutional reason” to remove Adams and that voters deserve the right to make their own decision on who should lead the city in the June primary election.
“At this critical moment for our city, we want to be crystal clear: we strongly oppose any move to remove Mayor Adams,” the letter reads.
Per the outlet, the letter’s signatories include Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who leads the Kings County Democratic Party; State Senators Leroy Comrie and James Sanders Jr.; and Assemblymembers Nikki Lucas, Alicia Hyndman, Clyde Vanel, and Al Taylor.
One of New York’s newest members of Congress weighed in on Adams’s predicament on Tuesday. Representative Laura Gillen, a Democrat representing Long Island’s South Shore, said in a statement that the mayor has “failed and betrayed” New York City over his tenure and urged Hochul to act.
“Over the past year, I’ve repeatedly called for Mayor Adams to do the right thing and resign, but if he won’t step aside, the Governor needs to act in the best interests of New Yorkers and remove him from his role,” she said.
As Adams’s future grows more and more in doubt, the mayor appears to be losing the support of one of his closest allies in the State Legislature. Queens assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar, a constant presence at Adams’s events, opted against endorsing the mayor’s reelection bid during an interview on Spectrum News’ Inside City Hall on Tuesday. Rajkumar, who is in the midst of a bid to be public advocate, put some distance between her and Adams:
However, Rajkumar seemed opposed to attempts to remove the mayor from office. “I think that voting for the mayor at the ballot box is truly a sacred right and it’s not something that we should take away. That would disenfranchise New Yorkers,” she said.
The Guardian reports that acting U.S. deputy assistant attorney general Emil Bove, who authored the memo ordering prosecutors to drop Adams’s case, is expected to attend the Wednesday court hearing:
In his memo, Bove noted that his order to dismiss did not take the strength of the case into consideration but suggested that the prosecution was politicized and that the indictment hindered Adams’s ability to address illegal immigration in the city.
New York’s Errol Louis reported last week that Council Speaker Adrienne Adams has been fielding requests from supporters urging her to jump into the mayoral race as a potential challenger to Mayor Adams.
While the Speaker has largely been mum on her intentions, Politico reports that state Attorney General Letitia James has been making calls on her behalf, citing sources familiar. Though it remains to be seen if Speaker Adams will ultimately declare, she has made it clear that the mayor’s tenure should be nearing its end as she called for his resignation earlier this week.
On Tuesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries didn’t weigh in on whether Governor Hochul should act to remove Adams or if he should resign, telling Spectrum News that the mayor needs to decide whether he’s still able to do the job he was elected to do.
“Mayor Adams has a responsibility to decisively demonstrate to the people of New York City that he has the capacity to continue to govern in the best interest of New Yorkers as opposed to taking orders from the Trump administration,” he said.
In response to Judge Ho’s request, Adams produced his letter consenting to the Justice Department’s dismissal motion earlier Tuesday:
Representative Nicole Malliotakis, New York City’s sole Republican member of Congress, made clear in a statement that she is against Governor Hochul’s using her power to remove Adams from office, even though she has her differences with him:
Members of the Black clergy and other religious leaders have published an open letter to Governor Hochul urging her against removing Adams. Among the signers is the Reverend Herbert Daughtry, whom the mayor considers a mentor:
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams took time Tuesday morning to respond to Adams, who took a public shot at him during a campaign event the previous night. The New York Post reported that the mayor targeted his potential successor, questioning Williams’s work ethic in front of a small crowd of supporters at a Brooklyn church.
“I still don’t know what he does because it’s hard to really serve the city when you wake up at noon,” Adams said of Williams. “If I step down, the public advocate becomes the mayor. So can you imagine turning the city over to him? That is the top reason not to step down.”
Williams responded in an early-morning post on social media:
Adams once again avoided questions from the press after joining NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch at a briefing about a police officer wounded in a shooting on the Lower East Side Tuesday morning. As the mayor was leaving Bellevue Hospital, reporters asked why he wasn’t taking questions from the media. Adams shot back, “’Cause y’all liars.” The City has video from the scene:
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams told reporters Tuesday evening that she had a “productive meeting” with Governor Hochul but provided no additional details. Gothamist has the video:
Speaker Adams, no relation to the mayor, would serve on a potential inability committee that could determine his future. Although the two Adamses promoted a united front at the start of their tenures in leadership, the Speaker has gradually distanced herself from the administration and has pointedly criticized the mayor’s policy decisions in alignment with the City Council.
Bronx Borough President Donovan Richards, who would serve on a potential inability committee, said he had a “clear-eyed and frank discussion” with Governor Hochul Tuesday morning about the Adams administration and the path forward. In a statement, Richards said the city requires “steady-handed leadership” and urged Adams to consider whether he’s able to provide that for his constituents.
“New Yorkers deserve that from a laser-focused government they can trust, and I encourage Mayor Adams to give deep, honest thought as to whether his administration is capable of delivering such a government,” he said.
The Reverend Al Sharpton, a crucial ally of Adams, has arrived for his scheduled meeting with Governor Hochul about the mayor’s future.
The longtime civil-rights activist told reporters following the meeting that Hochul intends to wait for Judge Ho’s hearing with Adams and Justice Department officials on Wednesday, per Fox 5 NY:
In a letter to Judge Ho, Adams’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, pushed back on former interim U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon’s assertion that the mayor’s legal team proposed what was essentially a quid pro quo during a meeting with Justice Department officials.
“At no time prior to, during, or after the meeting did we, Mayor Adams, or anyone else acting on behalf of Mayor Adams offer anything to the Department, or anyone else, in exchange for dismissal of the case. Nor did the Department, or anyone else, ever ask anything of us or the Mayor in exchange for dismissing the case. There was no quid pro quo. Period,” he wrote.
However, in a February 3 letter to acting U.S. deputy attorney general Emil Bove, Spiro specifically cites Adams’s ability to aid federal immigration enforcement and how it’s been hindered by the indictment.
“Mayor Adams’s independent abilities to exercise his powers have also been complicated by his indictment. The Mayor derives his power from the New York City Charter and the inherent nature of his political position. His powers allow him to take actions such as preventing the Office of the Corporation Counsel from litigating challenges to immigration enforcement, preventing appointed city employees from taking public stances against enforcement efforts, re-opening the ICE office on Rikers Island, and directing the NYPD to supply manpower to assist federal immigration agents,” Spiro wrote then.
On Tuesday, Oswald Feliz, a Democratic city councilmember who represents the Bronx, expressed concerns about the upheaval in city government, but said the calls for Hochul to remove Adams are “extreme and unacceptable.”
Former mayor Bill de Blasio, who said last week that he felt the federal government’s case against Adams was weak, continued to express sympathy toward the mayor in a statement to the New York Times. De Blasio, who once faced a federal investigation of his own, suggested that President Trump might’ve had ulterior motives in this arrangement with Adams.
“I know firsthand how difficult it is to run this city in the crosshairs of Donald Trump. The DOJ put Mayor Adams in a box last week, and he didn’t find his way out in time,” he said. “And that may have been Trump’s goal all along: not to ‘own’ Adams but to create chaos in the city that most rejects Trumpism.”
Scott Stringer, the former comptroller and current mayoral candidate, published a letter imploring Hochul to use her power to remove Adams from office. “Governor Hochul, it is time to act. New York City cannot endure this chaos any longer. The stakes and risks are too high for this to continue any longer,” he said.
As City Hall continues to be mired in controversy, the mayor is taking the opportunity to avoid the press. For the second week in a row, Adams isn’t holding his weekly media availability where he takes questions and often verbally spars with reporters. His Tuesday schedule is notably brief, featuring a morning meeting with senior administration officials and planned remarks at a Black History Month celebration for the NYPD Guardians Association later that evening.
City Hall later added a new appearance, with the mayor set to visit a wounded police officer with NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch and brief the media on the incident.
Judge Dale Ho, who is presiding over Adams’s bribery case, has ordered the mayor and Justice Department officials to appear in court on Wednesday at 2 p.m. to explain the dismissal motion:
The governor released a statement on Monday night responding to the deputy mayors’ resignations. “If they feel unable to serve in City Hall at this time, that raises serious questions about the long-term future of this Mayoral administration,” she said. Hochul also indicated that she is now actively considering removing Adams — and said she’d meet one-to-one with “key leaders” on Tuesday to discuss what happens next:
I recognize the immense responsibility I hold as governor and the constitutional powers granted to this office. In the 235 years of New York State history, these powers have never been utilized to remove a duly-elected mayor; overturning the will of the voters is a serious step that should not be taken lightly. That said, the alleged conduct at City Hall that has been reported over the past two weeks is troubling and cannot be ignored. Tomorrow, I have asked key leaders to meet me at my Manhattan office for a conversation about the path forward, with the goal of ensuring stability for the City of New York.
The City reports that a lawyer for the watchdog offered a legal rationale, as well:
A letter motion filed by attorney Nathaniel Akerman, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor, contends that the agreement gives the Justice Department control over the mayor’s actions, noting that motion was made “without prejudice” and allows the case to potentially be reopened after the November election.
“This qualification on the dismissal provides the Trump administration with potent leverage over Mr. Adams to ensure he follows the administration’s directives or else the indictment will be reinstated,” Akerman wrote. … [He] cited a 1977 case known as Rinaldi v United States, in which a federal court rejected a prosecutor’s request to withdraw a case against a man convicted of robbery in state court, then prosecuted again in federal court.
The district court in that case noted that the court is empowered to reject a dismissal motion “if the motion is prompted by considerations clearly contrary to the public interest.”
Akerman argued that there’s “overwhelming evidence from DOJ’s own internal documents showing that the dismissal of the Adams indictment is not in the public interest and is part of a corrupt quid pro quo between the Mayor Adams and the Trump administration.”
Congressman George Latimer:
And city councilmember Justin Brannan:
City comptroller (and mayoral candidate) Brad Lander has sent a letter to Adams demanding his plan for replacing the resigning deputy mayors — and said that if Adams didn’t provide that, he would “seek to convene” the Inability Committee.
The committee is the closest thing the city has to an impeachment process and one of the only legal pathways for ousting a New York City mayor — but it’s far from an easy one, as City & State explains:
Another, more complicated option to remove Adams outlined in the city charter would be through “a committee on mayoral inability.” This would be a five-member committee made up of the city’s corporation counsel, the comptroller, the City Council speaker, a deputy mayor selected by the mayor, and whichever borough president who’s served for the longest consecutive period. That would include comptroller Brad Lander (who is running for mayor), City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr., and recently-confirmed city Corporation Counsel Muriel Goode-Trufant (who was nominated by Adams). Four of the committee’s five members would need to vote to form a panel of inability, which would be the entire 51-member City Council. Depending on whether the inability committee decides that Adams should be removed permanently or temporarily, the City Council would then vote on the outcome. A two-thirds majority would be required to oust Adams.
So far, only two of those (four named) people are calling for Adams to resign (Lander and Adrienne Adams) and only one (Lander) has suggested they’d be willing to deploy the Inability Committee.
Another big name on the list, and as Errol Louis reported Saturday, she’s a potential mayoral candidate herself.
The City reports:
Mayor Eric Adams begged some of his top deputies to stick around as they told him this weekend they wanted to resign amid the Trump Justice Department’s extraordinary move to toss his federal corruption case, sources told THE CITY.
The plea came during a Zoom call with First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom, Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Chauncey Parker. All but Parker joined the administration at the 2022 start of Adams’ term.
As a reminder:
First deputy mayor Maria Torres-Springer, deputy mayor for operations Meera Joshi, deputy mayor for health and human services Anne Williams-Isom, and deputy mayor for public safety Chauncey Parker have all resigned.
Joshi said in a message to colleagues that “due to the extraordinary events of the last few weeks and to stay faithful to the oaths we swore to New Yorkers and our families, we have come to the difficult decision to step down from our roles.” Williams-Isom did not reference the reason in her own letter. Deputy mayor for public safety Chauncey Parker released a short statement.
They didn’t announce when they would officially leave the Adams administration, but NY1 reports their last days will be staggered sometime in March.
The mayor cited “current challenges” in a statement acknowledging their resignations: “I am disappointed to see them go, but given the current challenges, I understand their decision and wish them nothing but success in the future.”
The deputy mayors thought one of those challenges was their boss putting himself above the city, according to someone who spoke with the New York Times:
Increasingly, the deputy mayors felt that they were not merely working for an indicted mayor, but for someone whose personal interests were outweighing the interests of New Yorkers, according to another person briefed on the matter. They found this untenable, the person said.
An earlier version of this liveblog update incorrectly referred to Meera Joshi’s message as a joint statement.
Monday’s mini-rally echoes the small-tent press conference Adams hastily assembled back when he was indicted, except this one is inside a church where it’s not raining, and the protesters that came are outside and can’t drown out the speakers.
Adams also rolled out a Hitler analogy:
While the mayor insists he isn’t going anywhere, four of his top deputies plan to resign over the scandal within days, the New York Times reports:
The four officials — Maria Torres-Springer, the first deputy mayor, and Meera Joshi, Anne Williams-Isom and Chauncey Parker, all also deputy mayors — oversee much of New York City government, and their departure is poised to blow a devastating hole in the already wounded administration of Mayor Eric Adams. …
The four officials who are expected to resign are all respected government veterans. Ms. Torres-Springer was elevated to the second most powerful job at City Hall in October in an effort to stabilize city government and restore confidence in his administration following the mayor’s federal indictment in September on five corruption counts.
The departure of Mr. Parker is particularly pointed because he is the deputy mayor for public safety who has been deeply involved in issues around the city’s role in the president’s deportation plans.
The Times report indicates the resignations are expected soon, but the Daily News reports that they may be delayed, following a contentious meeting on Sunday, “in order to devise exit strategies.” The Daily News also reports that Adams’s top comms official, Fabien Levy, is eyeing the door, as well:
According to two other sources familiar with the matter, Deputy Mayor for Communications Fabien Levy has also told Adams he’s considering resigning. Levy didn’t return calls and texts Monday. City Hall press secretary Kayla Mamelak, whose boss is Levy, wouldn’t discuss what he or the other deputy mayors told Adams over the weekend, saying she won’t “get into the details of a private conversation for him or any other DM.”
In his new column, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig reviews all the ways Trump’s DOJ leaders screwed this up, including the precedent the Adams quid pro quo now sets:
Imagine where that principle leads. What if Adams, when asked by DOJ leadership, had said he does not support the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Then, under Bove’s construction, Adams gets nothing. Apparently Bove — and Bondi by her (perhaps willfully) blind assent — are perfectly fine with this transactional approach. Agree with the administration’s policies, you skate. Disagree, and it’s back to the criminal defense table. This is precisely what Sassoon meant when she referenced a potential quid pro quo in her resignation letter.
Let’s take it beyond Adams. What if a mayor in Texas had been indicted for, let’s say, embezzlement — but then DOJ under Biden had ordered the case dropped because the mayor promised he’d support the administration’s sanctuary cities policy. Would Bove be okay with that outcome?
The mind boggles at the implications. Governor gets indicted for tax fraud but he’s on board with a Democratic president’s anti-gun initiatives: free pass. Senator gets charged for bribery but she’s supportive of a Republican administration’s efforts to decrease foreign aid: case dismissed. Cop gets nabbed for excessive force and civil rights violations but we need him out on the streets to help with the president’s efforts to combat drug trafficking: charges dropped. A true adherent to the Bove Doctrine has to be perfectly fine with all these outcomes. You don’t get to pick and choose.
Read the rest here.
The New York Times has more on how the standoff between Bove and the DOJ’s Public Integrity section played out on Friday:
On Friday, the lawyers in the public integrity section confronted a stark choice that also reflected something of a generational divide in their office. Some of the older lawyers agreed with the principle of resigning in protest, but they also felt a pull to be practical and try to preserve the institution as much as possible.
The resignations of seven leading prosecutors, including Ms. Sassoon and Mr. Scotten, already sent a blaring message, they said. The public integrity section was working on about 200 cases, and the departure of all the lawyers in the section risked bringing them to an end.
Already, they noted, defense lawyers were peppering Mr. Bove — himself a former member of Mr. Trump’s criminal defense team — with appeals to drop cases based on arguments similar to his reasoning in the Adams case.
The longtime prosecutor who ultimately agreed to put his name on the filing, Ed Sullivan, had already been investigated (and cleared) amid a misconduct scandal 15 years ago, and argued that meant he had the least to lose, according to the Times sources. The report also indicates that the other DOJ lawyer who signed on, Criminal Division supervisor Antoinette Bacon, wasn’t taking a similar stand:
A longtime prosecutor in Ohio, Ms. Bacon had joined the administration to run the criminal division — an appointment that had been initially greeted with relief by career officials. But as the standoff between Mr. Bove and the career prosecutors persisted last week, many who report to Ms. Bacon came to see her as unquestioningly following Mr. Bove’s instructions, despite her years of experience as a corruption prosecutor.
Errol Louis reports that the city’s Black political leaders “are planning for life beyond Adams”:
Entreaties have been made to City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, urging her to consider entering the race at the last minute as a well-liked, moderate legislator who has quietly contained the worst ultra-progressive excesses of the Council and shepherded through the historic, pro-development City of Yes rezoning. Keep an eye on Adams’s powerful patron, Queens Democratic chairman Representative Gregory Meeks, to see if there’s sufficient support for an Adams versus Adams race.
The other electrifying development is the out-of-the-blue endorsement of Andrew Cuomo for mayor in a public letter issued by none other than H. Carl McCall, a former state comptroller who once represented Harlem in the state senate and tangled with Cuomo a generation ago in a bitter fight for the 2002 Democratic nomination for governor.
Read the rest here.
The state senator majority leader, who has long avoided commenting on Adams’s indictment, said Saturday that it was “probably time” for the mayor to go:
That was how former U.S. attorney (and Cafe Insider co-host) Joyce Vance characterized the Adams-DOJ quid pro quo in an interview with Nia Prater:
I don’t think we have ever seen — at least not since Watergate — prosecutors being asked to do something that was so clearly improper. People have made the point that Danielle Sassoon is a member of the Federalist Society and a former Scalia law clerk. Other resignations have come from people who similarly might have politics that are more in line with this administration’s politics than with Joe Biden’s politics. I say this as someone who lived through some of the excesses of the George W. Bush administration, which seems a little bit quaint now by comparison: You just don’t see this happen.
The difference that’s worth pointing out between Watergate and this was that in Watergate, the request came from the White House, and it was the leadership of the Justice Department that said no. Here, what I think is so shocking and what so many prosecutors have had a visceral reaction to is that this is coming from the attorney general and the acting deputy attorney general of the United States. The fact that those two leaders who took an oath to uphold the Constitution would demand this from a U.S. Attorney and from line prosecutors is just utterly shocking.
Read the rest here.
The New York Times has confirmed Reuters’ earlier report and added some additional details. During a video call with lawyers in the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section on Friday morning, Bove demanded that his motion to dismiss the charges against Mayor Adams be signed within an hour — and they perceived that meant there would be consequences if that didn’t happen:
Before being summoned for the tense meeting, lawyers in the section debated their bad options, but came to increasingly believe that someone should step forward to save the jobs of the others, people familiar with the discussions said. …
Part of the consideration for Justice Department lawyers is whether simply signing the document would mean risking their bar license, since major ethical objections have already been made to dropping the case. But in those private discussions, many of the lawyers believed it would be a worse outcome if all the section’s lawyers were fired or forced to resign over the Adams case.
Ultimately someone did step forward: longtime DOJ prosecutor Ed Sullivan, who reportedly agreed to file the motion in order to protect his colleagues.
As the New York Times points out, federal judges usually accept government requests to drop charges and have virtually no legal power to do otherwise. It’s however likely Ho will hold a hearing on the matter, and it’s possible he could eventually write an opinion criticizing the highly suspicious request, even if he can’t legally reject it. It’s not yet clear what will happen. One law professor who spoke with the Times thinks Ho will not be pleased:
“Judge Ho could say this is a politically motivated decision and it affronts the grand jury process and the integrity of the court,” said Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York University School of Law. …
Professor Gillers said Mr. Bove’s rationale for seeking dismissal of the charges would not sit well with the judge.
“Judge Ho will not accept that — should not accept that — as the justification for throwing out a grand jury decision to indict.”
It looks like Deputy Attorney General Bove got two DOJ officials to make the request, Criminal Division official (and former U.S. attorney) Antoinette T. Bacon, and Edward Sullivan from the Public Integrity Section.
Now they will have to see how the judge responds.
More and more people from the New York political world are publicly calling for the mayor to step down or be removed.
• New York City public advocate Jumaane Williams, who would take over as mayor if Adams resigns or is removed, said Friday that he hoped Adams would resign, noting that “he cannot be the mayor of this city and govern this city the way it needs to be governed.”
• Queens state senator John Liu called on Governor Hochul to “come to the defense of your constituents” and remove Adams if he doesn’t resign.
• “Mayor Adams has put this city and all of our people in jeopardy to save himself,” Brooklyn borough president Antonio Reynoso also said Friday. “Governor Hochul must end this chaos and remove Eric Adams — now.”
• On Thursday, Representative Nydia Velazquez called Sassoon’s claims “damning” and added that “NYC can’t be led by someone under Trump’s thumb and willing to sell out New Yorkers. Mayor Adams must resign.”
• Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez echoed those words in her own post, writing, “Trump wields this leverage over Adams, the city is endangered. We cannot be governed under coercion. If Adams won’t resign, he must be removed.”
• Mike Gianaris, the deputy leader of the State Senate, also called out the mayor on social media, saying that if Adams himself doesn’t step down, Hochul should take steps to remove him:
• Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado has also been emphatic that Adams’s tenure must come to an end:
Hochul herself has called the allegations against Adams “extremely concerning and serious,” but stopped short of calling for the mayor to step down. The governor, however, did not explicitly rule out using her office’s obscure power to unilaterally remove Adams as mayor.
He also waved off the significance of the federal prosecutors quitting over the move, describing them as “mostly people from the previous administration” who “were all going to be gone or dismissed.”
The mayor released a statement denying the multiple reports, and the account of now former U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, that his lawyers offered his cooperation on Trump’s immigration crackdown in exchange for dropping the charges against him: “I want to be crystal clear with New Yorkers: I never offered — nor did anyone offer on my behalf — any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case. Never.”
Also worth noting:
She appeared on Fox News from Munich on Friday afternoon. “He is about to get back his security clearance,” she said of the case. To be clear, the charges against Adams can’t be dismissed until the judge overseeing the case signs off.
According to Reuters, a veteran career prosecutor at the DOJ’s public integrity unit, Ed Sullivan, volunteered to dismiss the charges, following a pressure campaign by deputy attorney general Emil Bove. Sources told Reuters that Sullivan to protect his colleagues:
“This is not a capitulation-this is a coercion,” one of the people briefed on the meeting later told Reuters. “That person, in my mind, is a hero.” Sullivan’s decision came after the attorneys in the meeting contemplated resigning en masse, rather than filing the motion to dismiss, another source briefed on the matter told Reuters. There are approximately 30 attorneys in the Public Integrity Section.
CNBC reports that Bove met via video with the attorneys in the unit, and offered a promotion to those who agreed to sign the dismissal — then gave them an hour to provide the names of two prosecutors who would do it. It’s not clear if another prosecutor has agreed along with Sullivan.
In addition to Fox News, the mayor and Trump border czar Tom Homan also sat for an interview with Dr. Phil on Friday morning. At one point, Adams seemed to expressed his gratitude to the Trump administration: “I’m really pleased to have this collaboration because it was almost as though I was crying out in the wind and this administration heard it.”
She otherwise declined to comment on the Adams case during a Friday press conference on the state’s efforts to block DOGE’s U.S. Treasury access.
“At this point, there’s a number of discussions going on, discussions going on at the state level, discussions going on at the local level, private discussions,” the state attorney general said. “I’m going to refrain from any comment until such time as we complete those discussions and determine the fate of the mayor of the city of New York.”
The disgraced former governor published a valentine of sorts:
According to Reuters sources, “a federal prosecutor agreed on Friday to file a motion to dismiss the criminal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, in a bid to spare other career staff from potentially being fired by the acting deputy attorney general.”
In case there was any doubt after Mayor Adams’s comments:
Ross Barkan writes about the governor’s precarious predicament:
Adams is fast becoming a national embarrassment for Hochul. The Trump administration currently commands remarkable leverage over New York City; Bondi can essentially hold Adams hostage, threatening to revive the charges if the flailing mayor does not comply with every last policy demand. Not that Adams would feel that way; he seems to revel in his status as a favorite MAGA son and has giddily met with Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, and even appeared with him on Fox News. He’s ready to bring ICE everywhere possible and endanger New York’s status as a sanctuary city. And this week, the federal government clawed back $80 million meant to house migrants, with Adams uttering not a word in protest.
Hochul has quietly made the municipal government functional again; she effectively ordered Adams to hire Jessica Tisch as police commissioner and elevate Maria Torres-Springer, a capable bureaucrat, to first deputy mayor. Hochul is also believed to have ordered the purging of several high-level Adams officials who were tainted by various corruption probes. For several months, that seemed sufficient. Hochul, a white woman from Buffalo, did not want to be seen as the politician who forced Adams, a Black man from Brooklyn, out of City Hall — not when she had to sweat the support of Black voters in the five boroughs in a 2026 statewide primary. Black civil rights and clergy leaders were certainly uncomfortable with the duly elected Adams, yet to be convicted of any corruption charges, being marched from Gracie Mansion.
Now the calculus shifts. Hochul will feel renewed pressure, especially from her left flank, to act. But it is certainly not easy to decide to unilaterally remove a sitting mayor in an election year. Hochul is already in the midst of trying to negotiate personally with Trump to save congestion pricing while straining to beat back Bondi’s lawsuit against the state’s policy of granting driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants — a local law that also prevents federal law enforcement officials from accessing motor vehicle records.
Read the rest here.
Former U.S. Attorneys Harry Litman and Barb McQuade posted to social media on Friday claiming that the Justice Department has gathered top Public Integrity attorneys — the figures overseeing the prosecution of federal crimes affecting government integrity. They have been given one hour for one of them to sign a motion to dismiss Adams’s case; if none of them do, all will be fired.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotten, a conservative Republican, combat veteran, and former clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, submitted his resignation on Friday. Scotten led the office’s investigation into Eric Adams and is the seventh DOJ official to quit in two days.
“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,” he wrote in his resignation letter. He also excoriated the effort to find someone to dismiss the case:
The Friday morning joint appearance by the mayor and Trump “border czar” Tom Homan is only going to feed the political flames for Adams, as I note in my new post. This was how Adams tried to dismiss the claims that his lawyers had worked out a quid pro quo with the Trump DOJ:
“Think about my attorney Alex Spiro, one of the top trial attorneys in the country. Imagine him going inside saying that, ‘the only way Mayor Adams is going to assist in immigration’ — which I was calling for since 2022 — ‘is if you drop the charges.’ That’s quid pro quo. That’s a crime,” he said.
Adams continued, “It took her three weeks to report in front of her a criminal action? Come on, this is silly.”
And then this happened:
The interview ended with Homan making it clear that he and Adams’s friendly relationship could change depending on how he addresses immigration in his city. “If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City and 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?, he said.’”
Adams appeared to laugh with Homan and the Fox hosts. “And I want ICE to deliver. We’re going to deliver for the safety of this city,” the mayor said.
