NEW YORK— The acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and two high-ranking Department of Justice attorneys resigned on Thursday, just days after the Manhattan office was ordered to drop a five-count bribery case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The famously independent Manhattan prosecutor’s office and top Department of Justice officials then clashed.
Danielle Sassoon, who was appointed by President Donald Trump’s administration to lead the Manhattan office while his permanent replacement awaits Senate confirmation, resigned in protest of the order to drop the Adams charges. According to a source familiar with the developments, Kevin Driscoll, the acting head of Justice’s Criminal Division, and John Keller, the top remaining official in the Public Integrity Section, also left.
Sassoon’s departure, first reported by The New York Times, elicited an extraordinary response from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove.
In an eight-page letter accepting Sassoon’s resignation, Bove chastised the experienced litigator and stated that he had transferred control of Adams’ case to Justice Department headquarters in Washington and would move to dismiss it without the New York office’s cooperation.
“Under your leadership, the office has demonstrated itself to be incapable of fairly and impartially reviewing the circumstances of this prosecution,” according to Bove.
Bove’s decision to take over the case drew criticism from within Main Justice. Driscoll and Keller also resigned rather than dismiss Adams’ case, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Citing Sassoon’s refusal to drop the charges, which Sassoon said her office agreed with, Bove also said he is putting the assistant prosecutors in charge of Adams’ case on paid leave pending an investigation that could lead to their termination.
Bove was one of Trump’s personal lawyers prior to the 2024 election and is now the Justice Department’s second-highest-ranking official. He has overseen a rapid and significant transformation within the department, including the dismissal of prosecutors involved in the Jan. 6 cases and the collection of the names of FBI agents who investigated those cases.
Sassoon appeared to be aggressively pursuing the Adams case. In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi obtained by POLITICO on Wednesday, Sassoon stated that her office was prepared to file a new indictment against Adams, alleging that he destroyed evidence relevant to the case.
And last month, she rebutted the mayor’s claim that his case was retaliation from the Biden administration. Sassoon pointed out that federal prosecutors began investigating the Democrat in 2021, before Adams began criticizing the former president’s immigration policy.
Sassoon also warned Bondi that dropping the case against Adams would be difficult, as Judge Dale Ho was expected to conduct a “searching inquiry” into the reasons for the dismissal. The resulting litigation would be “lengthy” and “detrimental to the Justice Department’s reputation, regardless of outcome,” she stated.
Sassoon’s resignation and Bove’s rebuke mark the latest escalation in the Trump DOJ’s apparent attempt to shield Adams, a Democrat, from what Trump and his top officials have described as the department’s weaponization.
On Monday, Bove wrote to Sassoon, requesting that she drop the case against Adams, who was accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions and travel perks in exchange for official action that benefited the Turkish government.
In his letter, Bove stated that Adams’ upcoming April trial was impeding the mayor’s support for Trump’s immigration agenda and hampered his reelection campaign. However, Bove made no decision on the merits of the case and stated that it could be reopened after the November mayoral election, giving the Trump administration enormous leverage over the big city Democrat.
In her resignation letter on Thursday, Sassoon argued that dismissing the case would be rewarding Adams for “an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for the dismissal of his case.”
Sassoon described the meeting with Adams’ lawyers, as well as representatives from the main justice and the Southern District, on January 31. “Adams’s attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed,” she says.
“The idea that there was a quid pro quo is a complete lie. “We offered nothing, and the department asked nothing of us,” Adams’ attorney Alex Spiro said in response to Sassoon’s letter.
“We were asked if the case had any bearing on national security and immigration enforcement and we truthfully answered it did,” according to him.
Adams moved Thursday to broaden the city’s cooperation with federal immigration agents. After meeting with Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan, the mayor agreed to issue an executive order overriding local “sanctuary city” laws to allow ICE to work on Rikers Island, the city’s jail complex.
Spiro had no further comment on Sassoon’s resignation or Bove’s decision to dismiss Adams’ case.
A spokesperson for the Southern District of New York did not return a request for comment.
Adams himself praised Bove’s decision to drop the charges in a speech on Tuesday.
“I thank the Justice Department for its honesty,” he told reporters. “Now you can put this heinous episode behind you and concentrate solely on the future of our city. It’s time to move forward.
The turmoil in the Justice Department began one week after Bondi was sworn in as attorney general, and one day after she told reporters at her first press conference that she was unaware that prosecutors had failed to follow Bove’s directive to drop the case.
“That case should be dropped,” Bondi said Wednesday, noting that she had not spoken with Sassoon about it, but Bove had. “I did not know that it had not been dropped yet, but I will certainly look into that.”
The high-level resignations occurred while Bondi was on her first trip as attorney general, visiting Munich for the well-attended Munich Security Conference.
When asked for comment on Bondi’s resignations, a Justice Department spokesperson provided a statement from Bove.
“No U.S. Attorney’s Office is a separate sovereign,” Bove said, alluding to the Manhattan federal prosecutors’ office’s tongue-in-cheek nickname, “the Sovereign District of New York.”
“There is no room at the Justice Department for attorneys who refuse to execute on the priorities of the Executive Branch — priorities determined by the American people,” Bove told reporters. “I look forward to working with new leadership at SDNY on the important priorities President Trump has laid out for us to make America safe again.”
