Acting US attorney in Manhattan resigns after directive to drop case against Mayor Eric Adams
NEW YORK (WABC) -- The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan and five other top officials resigned Thursday rather than obey a Justice Department order to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Danielle Sassoon resigned Thursday as the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
It follows days of tension between the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan and the Justice Department over an order to let Adams off the hook.
A senior Justice Department official directed New York prosecutors to drop the case against Adams, who was accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions and bribes of free or discounted travel from people who wanted to buy his influence.
ABC News has obtained an extraordinary letter Sassoon to Attorney General Pam Bondi in which she repeatedly urged Bondi to reverse course on dropping the criminal corruption case against Adams.
WATCH | Mayor Adams discusses meeting with border czar about immigration enforcement
Sassoon, a Republican who was interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, accused the department of acceding to a "quid pro quo" - dropping the case to ensure Adams' help with Trump's immigration agenda - and said she was "confident" the Democratic mayor committed the crimes spelled out in his indictment, and even more.
"The reasons advanced by Mr. Bove for dismissing the indictment are not ones I can in good faith defend as in the public interest and as consistent with the principles of impartiality and fairness that guide my decision-making," Sassoon writes.
In the letter, Sassoon repeatedly suggests DOJ leadership including acting Deputy AG Emil Bove were explicitly aware of a 'quid pro quo' suggested by Adams' attorneys that his vocal support of Trump's immigration policies would be boosted with dismissing the indictment against him.
"Rather than be rewarded, Adams's advocacy should be called out for what it is: an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case," Sassoon writes. "Although Mr. Bove disclaimed any intention to exchange leniency in this case for Adams's assistance in enforcing federal law, that is the nature of the bargain laid bare in Mr. Bove's memo."
Sassoon's letter detailed a meeting on Jan. 31 with Bove and counsel for Mayor Adams, where she says Adams' attorneys put forward "what amounted to a quid pro quo," after which 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."
"It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams's opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment," Sassoon says. "Nor will a court likely find that such an improper exchange is consistent with the public interest."
Before the showdown, Sassoon said, prosecutors had been preparing to charge Adams with destroying evidence and instructing others to destroy evidence and provide false information to the FBI.
Mayor Adams' attorney Alex Spiro responded in a statement, taking issue with Sassoon's characterization of rewarding the mayor in exchange for his political cooperation.
"The idea that there was a quid pro quo is a total lie. We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us," he said. "I don't know what 'amounted to' means. We were asked if the case had any bearing on national security and immigration enforcement and we truthfully answered it did."
Mayor Adams' Office says it was a coincidence that the mayor sat down with the president's border czar on Thursday, a meeting which ended in an agreement for immigration agents to have a workspace on Rikers Island, to target undocumented criminals there.
But some lawmakers in New York are already calling on Mayor Adams to step down, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who called the latest developments "explosive."
"Mayor Adams is putting the City of New York and its people at risk in exchange for escaping charges," she said in a post on X. "As long as 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."
Lieutenant Gov. Antonio Delgado also called on Mayor Adams to resign, saying, "New York City deserves a Mayor accountable to the people, not beholden to the President."
During an interview on MSNBC Thursday night, Governor Kathy Hochul -- the one person who has the authority to remove Adams -- decried the unprecedented interference in the case against the mayor, but said she's considering all her options.
"I don't want our rebirth to be stopped. I have to maintain stability, end the chaos and do what's best for the city because as governor I represent the city," she said. "These are my constituents as well. This just happened, I need some time to process this and figure out the right approach."
As for Sassoon, the resignation letter that was sent to Bondi on Thursday, was brief and did not mention the Adams case, according to a source familiar with the letter.
Just Wednesday, Bondi expressed surprise upon learning that Sassoon had not yet followed her directive to file paperwork with a federal judge overseeing the mayors corruption case to drop the charges.
And Bove admonished Sassoon over her repeated refusals to sign off on the dismissal.
"You lost sight of the oath that you took when you started at the Department of Justice by suggesting that you retain discretion to interpret the Constitution in a manner inconsistent with the policies of a democratically elected President and a Senate-confirmed Attorney General," Bove said in the letter obtained by ABC News.
Sassoon was briefly overseeing the U.S. Attorneys Office in the Southern District until the president's permanent nominee, Jay Clayton, is confirmed.
The Justice Department planned to remove the prosecutors handling the mayor's case and reassign it to the Public Integrity Section in Washington. However, as soon the Public Integrity Section was informed it would be taking over, John Keller, the acting head of the unit and his boss, Kevin Driscoll, the senior most career official in the criminal division resigned, according to multiple sources.
That was followed by at least three more top supervisory officials within the Public Integrity Section who announced their resignations, sources said.
Several former and current officials who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity have already began dubbing the episode the "Thursday Afternoon Massacre," likening it to one of the most transformative moments in DOJ history, the "Saturday Night Massacre," when a cascading number of top officials resigned from the department rather than follow former President Richard Nixon's directive to dismiss a special prosecutor who was investigating the Watergate scandal.
It is now unclear who will take over the Adams case and how soon it might be dropped, the sources said.
(The Associated Press and ABC News contributed to this report.)
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