The News
Acting US Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove defended the Department of Justice’s decision to abandon corruption charges against New York City’s Mayor Eric Adams at a federal court hearing Wednesday.
Bove argued that the prosecution against Adams interfered with his ability to carry out his duties as mayor, particularly in terms of acting on US President Donald Trump’s order for mass deportations.
Bove said the same rationale could apply to other public officials, such as a police commissioner — an indication that the Justice Department could forego prosecuting other public officials who are suspected of breaking the law if they cooperate with the Trump administration, The New York Times wrote.
The judge said he would make a decision in the case at a later date.
The case has become a focal point in the growing tension between the courts and the new administration as it seeks to overhaul the government’s priorities and policies: After the hearing, Bove called on all prosecutors who “do not support our critical mission,” to resign, saying “I understand there are templates for resignation letters available on the websites of the New York Times and CNN.”
SIGNALS
Justice Department faces internal crisis over Adams case dismissal
At least half a dozen federal attorneys have resigned in connection to the Adams case following the Department of Justice order to dismiss it. Writing in her resignation letter, now-former acting US Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon alleged there was a quid pro quo between the administration and Mayor Adams — the mayor told the judge on Wednesday he had not been coerced — while another now-former attorney wrote that only a “coward” or a “fool” would support the DOJ’s reasoning. Hundreds of former prosecutors wrote a letter Monday in support of career federal attorneys, urging them to uphold the “rule of law.” The political pressures are in danger of making the job of a federal prosecutor “ethically impossible,” one Lawfare analyst argued, as all prosecutors are essentially “one phone call away from being put in the position of facing a demand to behave unethically.”
Trump administration tests criminal justice system’s resilience
The growing conflict between the new Trump administration and the federal courts and career prosecutors is comparable to former President Richard Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre,” when Justice Department officials resigned over his order to fire the prosecutor investigating Watergate, an expert at the Brennan Center for Justice wrote. The new administration appears to be aiming to make the Justice Department into the president’s “personal law enforcement agency,” she argued. On Tuesday, Donald Trump said he had ordered the Department of Justice to fire any remaining Biden-appointed US attorneys. Those moves risk undercutting the long-standing premise that the Justice Department is nonpartisan, a Lawfare expert argued, even as the Trump administration’s DOJ appointees have argued the Adams case was politically motivated.