Top prosecutors quit after Justice Department orders end to corruption case against NYC Mayor Adams

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7. Additional resignations: Order to Drop Adams Case Prompts Resignations in New York and Washington

Order to Drop Adams Case Prompts Resignations in New York and Washington
The interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and two officials with the federal public integrity unit all quit after the Justice Department ordered the charges against Mayor Eric Adams to be dropped.


Danielle Sassoon’s departure from the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office came days after she was ordered to drop the case against the mayor. Kent Nishimura for The New York Times

By William K. Rashbaum, Benjamin Weiser, Jonah E. Bromwich and Maggie Haberman
Feb. 13, 2025
Updated 3:53 p.m. ET

Manhattan’s U.S. attorney on Thursday resigned just days after she was ordered to drop the corruption case against New York City’s mayor. ... Then, when Justice Department officials sought to transfer the case to the public integrity section in Washington, which oversees corruption cases, the two men who led that unit also resigned, according to five people with knowledge of the matter. ... The resignations represent the most high-profile public resistance so far to President Trump’s tightening control over the Justice Department.

The departures of the U.S. attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon, and the officials who oversee the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, Kevin O. Driscoll and John Keller, came in rapid succession on Thursday. Days earlier, the acting No. 2 official at the Justice Department had ordered Manhattan prosecutors to drop the corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams.

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The agency’s justification for dropping the case was explicitly political. The No. 2 official, Emil Bove III, argued that the investigation would prevent Mr. Adams from fully cooperating with Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown. Mr. Bove made a point of saying that Washington officials had not evaluated the strength of the evidence or the legal theory behind the case.

Mr. Bove, in accepting Ms. Sassoon’s resignation, informed her that the prosecutors who worked on the case were being placed on administrative leave, and would be investigated by the attorney general and the Justice Department’s internal investigative arm. He told Ms. Sassoon both bodies would also evaluate her conduct. ... He wrote he had accepted her resignation “based on your choice to continue pursuing a politically motivated prosecution despite an express instruction to dismiss the case. You lost sight of the oath that you took when you started at the Department of Justice.”

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Although the office is part of the Justice Department — there are 93 U.S. attorney’s offices around the country — the Southern District has a reputation for guarding its independence and fending off interference from Washington, winning it the nickname “the Sovereign District.” ... Ms. Sassoon, 38, joined the Southern District in 2016. A graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School, she clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, and is a member of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group.

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Devlin Barrett, Glenn Thrush and Jan Ransom contributed reporting.

William K. Rashbaum is a Times reporter covering municipal and political corruption, the courts and broader law enforcement topics in New York. More about William K. Rashbaum

Benjamin Weiser is a Times reporter covering the federal courts and U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, and the justice system more broadly. More about Benjamin Weiser

Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state criminal courts in Manhattan. More about Jonah E. Bromwich

Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent, reporting on the second, nonconsecutive term of Donald J. Trump. More about Maggie Haberman