Analysis: Trump vowed to take politics out of prosecutions. The Eric Adams case tells a different story
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WASHINGTON — On her first day as President Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi promised to remove politics from criminal prosecutions and to restore the “integrity and credibility” of the Justice Department.
She established a “weaponization working group” to identify instances in which the “department’s conduct appears to have been designed to achieve political objectives.”
But it took less than a week for her top deputy to send the opposite message: that politics, not the law, called for dismissing a grand jury’s indictment of New York Mayor Eric Adams on corruption charges.
The acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, made that clear in correspondence with prosecutors in New York when he wrote that the Trump administration did not question “the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based” but that it needed the mayor’s help in its crackdown on illegal immigration.
The order, which triggered an extraordinary rebellion and the resignation of seven anti-corruption prosecutors, put a spotlight on how the new administration could further politicize the Justice Department.
So far, Trump’s team has chosen to fight legal battles in court rather than defy judicial orders. Will that continue?
Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee called for an investigation by the department’s inspector general.
“The American people cannot afford to have the Department of Justice weaponize its vast prosecutorial authority to coerce public officials to assist any president’s political project,” said Sen Richard Durbin (D-Ill.).
Conservative legal analysts were sharply critical as well. Ed Whelan called the resignation of Danielle Sassoon, acting U.S. attorney in New York, “an act of courage and integrity” in a social media post. “Emil Bove could not have mishandled this worse if he had tried.”
A veteran Justice Department prosecutor who asked not to named said, “the long-term damage to DoJ will be [incalculable].”
Prosecutors are fearful and uncertain on what to do. “Good people interested in public service will no longer find a career at DoJ appealing,” he said.
Two of the prosecutors who quit in protest have strong conservative credentials and wrote scathing letters of resignation.
“I understand my duty as a prosecutor to mean enforcing the law impartially,” wrote Sassoon, a former law clerk for a conservative icon, the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. It does not mean dismissing a case if it “would be politically advantageous to the defendant or to those who appointed me,” she went on.
Hagan Scotten, the lead prosecutor on the case, was an Army veteran with three combat tours in Iraq, a Harvard law graduate and a former law clerk for Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., both appointed by Republican presidents.
He said prosecutions are not a tool to aid political allies or punish political enemies.
“I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion” dismissing the case against Adams, he wrote to Bove. “But it was never going to be me.”
On Friday, a long-serving Justice Department attorney agreed to sign the dismissal to spare further firings and resignations.
The motion to dismiss the case now goes before U.S. District Judge Dale Ho to decide how to proceed.
Trump is likely to succeed in expanding presidential powers on some fronts because the Constitution generally puts vast power in the hands of the president.
Bove represented Trump last year in his New York trial over hush money payments, and he was named acting deputy attorney general when Trump was sworn in.
He triggered the revolt Feb. 10 when he sent a letter telling federal prosecutors in New York “you are directed” to dismiss the pending charges against Adams.
“The pending prosecution has unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that has escalated under the policies of the prior administration,” Bove wrote.
He continued: “Accomplishing the immigration objectives established by President Trump and Attorney General Bondi” outweigh the need to prosecute a criminal case.
It would have been less surprising if Bove had questioned the case on legal grounds. The Supreme Court has overturned public corruption verdicts if an official took gifts and favors but did not take significant “official acts” in response.
The indictment said that since Adams served as Brooklyn borough president, he had taken luxury international trips paid for by Turkish officials and received illegal campaign contributions from foreigners. It was less clear what Adams had done in response. The indictment filed in September said the mayor pressured the city fire department in 2021 to open a new Turkish consular building on time without a fire inspection.
In an eight-page letter to Bondi, Sassoon said an attorney for Adams met with Bove and the prosecutors on Jan. 31 and “repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo” in which the mayor “could assist with the department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.”
On Friday, the New York mayor appeared on Fox News with Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, who appeared to confirm they had made a deal.
“If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City, and we won’t be sitting on the couch. I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’ ” Homan said.
Bove accepted Sassoon’s resignation and angrily accused her of ignoring her duty of loyalty to the president and the attorney general.
“The Justice Department will not tolerate the insubordination and apparent misconduct reflected in the approach that you and your office have taken,” he wrote.
His second letter described the Adams indictment as a “politically motivated prosecution,” apparently because it arose under the Biden administration.
In her opening day memo on restoring integrity to the Justice Department, Bondi called for a return to the department’s “core values” and said, “no one who has acted with a righteous spirit and just intentions has any cause for concern.”
But by Friday afternoon, her chief of staff Chad Mizelle said the dispute over the Adams case shows the need to crack down on dissidents in the department.
The dismissal of the indictment shows “this DoJ will return to its core function of prosecuting dangerous criminals, not pursuing politically motivated witch hunts,” he said in a statement.
“The fact that those who indicted and prosecuted the case refused to follow a direct command is further proof of the disordered and ulterior motives of the prosecutors,” he wrote. “Such individuals have no place at DOJ.”
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