U.S. lawyer resigns after being ordered to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Adams

NEW YORK (AP) – Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor resigned Thursday as the Justice Department ordered New York Mayor Eric Adams to drop corruption charges.

Republican Danielle Sassoon, interim prosecutor in southern New York, announced his resignation in an email to staff, a move confirmed by an office spokesperson.

Just a few days ago, a senior Justice official from Republican President Donald Trump’s Justice Department directed New York prosecutors to file a lawsuit against the Democratic mayor, accused of accepting illegal campaign donations and bribes for free or discounted travel. The person. Influence.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said in a memo that the case should be dismissed so that Adams can help Trump’s immigration crackdown and re-election campaign to avoid facing criminal charges. The primary is a four-month journey, with Adams having multiple challengers.

Bove directed that this should be done as soon as possible after “workable”, but the prosecutor’s team did not make public statements or act. On Wednesday, new U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said she would “investigate” why the case has not been dismissed. As of Thursday afternoon, the allegations against Adams remained. He pleaded not guilty.

In an email to her employees, Sassoon gave no reason to resign. In the notes, the content was obtained by the Associated Press, who said she had just submitted her resignation to Bundy.

“As I told her, it is my greatest honor to represent the United States and serve as a prosecutor in the southern New York region.”

A Justice Department official told the Associated Press that department officials did not ask Sasan to resign. The official has no right to discuss personnel issues publicly and has spoken on anonymous condition.

The department declined public comment on Sasau’s exports. Adams’ attorney Alex Spiro left a message seeking comment. A spokesperson for the mayor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Due to the advantages of political considerations rather than evidence, the government’s decision to end the Adams case shocked some professional prosecutors, who said it went against the long-term norms.

Bove’s instructions were former Trump’s personal attorney, even better because Bove has been a long-time prosecutor and supervisor for the Southern Region and, as department leaders historically unwilling to intervene in costs, especially It is a fee raised in the office – especially in the office. It has a reputation as the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Despite decades of traditional departmental decisions, Buff’s memorandum also evades any legal basis for firing, requiring fee decisions to be guided by facts, evidence and law.

Sassoon is a former clerk of late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who is not the prosecutor who filed a lawsuit against Adams last year. That was Damian Williams, the then-American lawyer, who resigned after Trump’s victory in November.

Sassoon was only attacked as an agent of American lawyers the day after Trump took office.

Her role is intended for the time being. Trump nominated former SEC chairman Jay Clayton for the position in November, an appointment that the Senate must confirm. That hasn’t happened yet.

The Southern New York region is one of the largest and most prominent prosecutor’s offices in the United States, with a long history of addressing Wall Street malfeasance, political corruption and international terrorism.

It has a tradition of independence from Washington, which makes it the nickname of “Soviet District.”

During Trump’s first term, the office sued Michael Cohen, the president’s personal attorney, and Steve Bannon, his strategic adviser, in various cases. Cohen pleaded guilty to tax evasion and campaign finance charges. Trump passed a pardon for Bannon’s federal fraud case, although state prosecutors subsequently filed nearly the same charges.

This is the second Justice Department strike in five years between Washington and New York officials, leading to huge leadership rights.

In 2020, William Barr kicked off a surprising night announcement in Manhattan’s U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, who served in his first term One of Trump’s Attorney General. Berman initially refused to resign, creating a brief standoff with Barr, but after assuring that his investigation into Trump allies would not be disturbed.

Sassoon joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2016. In 2023, she led a fraud prosecution by Sam Bankman Fried, founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Recently, she served as the office’s co-moderator for criminal appeals.

Adams was indicted in September for accusing him of being the president of Brooklyn Borough, when he accepted over $100,000 in illegal campaign donations and luxurious travel allowances such as expensive flight upgrades, luxury hotels and even accommodation.

The indictment said a Turkish official helped facilitate travel and then relied on Adams for favors, including asking him to lobby the fire department to get the fire department to open a newly built 36-storey diplomatic building in a timely manner and to open a visit to the Turkish president’s plan.

Prosecutors said they had evidence that Adams personally directed political aides to solicit foreign donations and concealed them to help the campaign qualify for a city program that provides generous, publicly funded small donations. Under federal law, foreign nationals are prohibited from contributing to the U.S. campaign.

Just on January 6, prosecutors said their investigation was still active and wrote in court documents that they continued to “reveal Adams’ additional criminal acts.”

In the memo, Bow said that Washington’s Justice Department officials did not evaluate the evidence for the case before deciding that it should be revoked – at least until after the mayoral election in November.

But he criticized Williams for his “recent public action”, saying “threatening the integrity of the lawsuit, including pretrial propaganda that increases bias.” Williams has not spoken publicly about Adams Case since his resignation, but instead wrote an editor that condemns corruption in politics.

Federal agents have also been investigating other senior Adams assistants. It is not clear what will happen on that side of the probe. __

Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to the report.