Another New York prosecutor quits after order to drop mayor’s corruption case

A top prosecutor who brought corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams has resigned after being ordered by the Trump Justice Department to drop the case, the latest federal attorney to quit in protest over the extraordinary demand.

Pressure was mounting meanwhile on the Democratic mayor to resign or for New York Governor Kathy Hochul to use her powers to remove him as the leader of the largest city in the United States.

Danielle Sassoon, who was appointed by President Donald Trump to be the acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, submitted her resignation to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday, three days after being asked to drop the case against Adams.

Hagan Scotten, an assistant US attorney for the Southern District, has followed suit today and says in a blistering email to acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove that the reasons given for dismissing the indictment of Adams did not stand up to scrutiny.

“No system of 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 says.

In asking for the charges to be dropped, Bove, a former personal lawyer to Trump, says the prosecution of Adams was restricting his “ability to devote full attention and resources to illegal immigration and violent crime.”

Scotten, in his email to Bove, says “our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials.

“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 says. “But it was never going to be me.”

Scotten, a decorated US Army veteran and Harvard Law School graduate, was a former clerk to conservative US Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, and Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed by Trump to the Supreme Court.

Sassoon, a graduate of Yale Law School and a member of the conservative Federalist Society, led the high-profile 2023 prosecution of disgraced crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried.

In addition to Sassoon and Scotten, several high-ranking members of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section in Washington, which handles corruption cases, have also resigned this week.