NEW YORK — A Justice Department official told a federal judge Wednesday that granting its request to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams was his only option after the Democrat said under oath that no “other agreement” was made with the government in return for the charges being dropped.
Judge Dale E. Ho ended Wednesday’s hearing by saying he wouldn’t “shoot from the hip” and rule immediately but was aware that “it’s not in anyone’s interest here for this to drag on.”
Adams appeared in high spirits during the more the 80-minute hearing, a shift from past appearances. Strolling slowly into the courtroom, he embraced Black clergy members sitting in the front row.
At one point, the judge asked Deputy U.S. Attorney General Emil Bove, who represented the government, whether he thought he could consider a written submission by three former U.S. attorneys and a separate one by a former Watergate prosecutor in making his decision.
Bove said the submission by the U.S. attorneys should be rejected because lawyers who worked on the New York criminal prosecution of President Donald Trump worked on it. He did not oppose a submission by attorney Nathaniel Akerman, representing Common Cause, a nonpartisan advocacy group for U.S. elections integrity.
Akerman had urged Ho to reject the dismissal of charges and told the judge to explore whether there was a “quid pro quo” — his help on immigration enforcement in exchange for dropping the case.
Bove said he should reject claims that a quid pro quo existed because the mayor told him under oath that no “other agreement” had been made between himself and the government as he agreed to go along with a dismissal of charges that would allow them to be reinstated at a later date.
“I don’t concede and I don’t think it’s correct that even if there was a quid pro quo there would be any issue with this motion,” Bove added.
Ho scheduled the hearing after three Trump administration lawyers, including Bove, made the dismissal request Friday. Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor resigned after she refused an order to seek dismissal.
In a back-and-forth between the judge and Adams, Ho said he wanted to confirm that the mayor had agreed that the charges would be dropped with the possibility they could be reinstated at a later date.
“Yes, your honor,” Adams said.
Then, the judge asked him questions to ensure he understood that if the charges were dropped, they could later be reinstated.
“I have not committed a crime,” Adams said. “I’m not afraid of that.”
An indictment charged Adams with accepting more than $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks from a Turkish official and business leaders seeking to buy Adams’ influence while he was Brooklyn borough president. He faces multiple challengers in the Democratic primary in June.
Bove said the request to drop the corruption charges against the mayor resulted from “a straightforward exercise in prosecutorial discretion guided” by Trump’s executive order on weaponization of the justice system and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s memorandum outlining the same.
Bove said he believed the request to drop charges, when tied to Trump’s order and Bondi’s conclusions, made it “virtually unreviewable in this courtroom.”
Bove said he also believed “the continuation of this prosecution is interfering with both national security and immigration enforcement initiatives being carried out by the executive branch.”
Closely watching the judicial proceedings is Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is considering whether to remove Adams from office amid concerns that he reached a deal to have the case dropped in exchange for the mayor’s political fealty to Trump.
Early last week, Bove told prosecutors in New York to drop the charges because the prosecution “has unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime.” Bove said charges could be reinstated after November’s mayoral election.
Two days later, then-interim U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon told Bondi in a letter that dismissing the charges in return for Adams’ assistance in enforcing federal immigration laws would betray Bondi’s own words that she “will not tolerate abuses of the criminal justice process, coercive behavior, or other forms of misconduct.”
“Dismissal of the indictment for no other reason than to influence Adams’s mayoral decision-making would be all three,” said Sassoon, a Republican. She said it amounted to a “quid pro quo” deal and disclosed that prosecutors were about to bring additional obstruction of justice charges against Adams.
Bove, in accepting Sassoon’s resignation, accused her of “pursuing a politically motivated prosecution despite an express instruction to dismiss the case.” He informed her that two other prosecutors assigned to the case were being suspended with pay and that an investigation would determine if they would keep their jobs.
One prosecutor, Hagan Scotten quit the following day, writing in a resignation letter that he supported Sassoon’s actions. Scotten told Bove that it would take a “fool” or a “coward” to meet Bove’s demand to drop the charges, “but it was never going to be me.”
In all, seven prosecutors, including five high-ranking prosecutors at the Justice Department had resigned by Friday.
Shortly before Wednesday’s hearing, Bondi’s chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, took to social media to defend the department’s dismissal request, citing an argument over a point of law 10 days after Bove said a decision to drop charges was reached “without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based.”
In a series of posts on X, Mizelle argued that in the Adams case, prosecutors’ “expansive reading” of the public corruption law was unlikely to fare well before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has overturned the convictions of high-profile, white-collar defendants.
“The case against Mayor Adams was just one in a long history of past DOJ actions that represent grave errors of judgement,” Mizelle wrote.
Sassoon and her colleagues have found support for their stand from a small army of former prosecutors.
On Friday, seven former U.S. attorneys in Manhattan, including James Comey, Geoffrey S. Berman and Mary Jo White, issued a statement lauding Sassoon’s “commitment to integrity and the rule of law.”
On Monday, three former U.S. attorneys from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut submitted papers to Ho suggesting that he appoint a special prosecutor if he finds the Justice Department acted improperly or that he order all evidence be made available to state and local prosecutors.
A former Watergate prosecutor filed papers separately, telling the judge to reject the government’s request and consider assigning a special counsel to explore the legal issues and ultimately consider appointing an independent special prosecutor to try the case.
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Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.
