On February 10, 2025, U.S. federal prosecutors in Manhattan were told by the Justice Department (DOJ) to drop corruption charges and cease additional investigations into New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Thus far seven federal prosecutors, including the leader of the Manhattan office, and four of Adams’ top deputies have resigned in protest. The prosecutors’ resignations reflect a reaction to a deeply unethical and unusually political request from the new leadership at the DOJ and an effort to avoid blemishing their careers by signing off on it. Now-former U.S. prosecutor Hagan Scotten has called the move a “dismissal-with-leverage,” suggesting it was designed to force Adams to comply with President Trump’s immigration agenda. Similarly, Danielle Sasson, the recently-resigned former top U.S. attorney in Manhattan and a conservative who clerked for Justice Scalia, described a meeting between U.S. Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove and Adams’ lawyers as “amount[ing] to a quid pro quo.” These accusations are strengthened by the DOJ’s insistence that the case be dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning the case could be potentially brought back in the future, making it a perfect weapon for coercion. Although the DOJ has moved to dismiss the case, such an action requires U.S. District Judge Dale Ho to sign off on the request so further drama could still unfold should Judge Ho show resistance.
The nature of Mayor Adam’s charges makes the DOJ’s sudden retreat all the more alarming. Adams, who famously ran and won the mayorship as a law-and-order Democrat in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, was indicted by a grand jury in late September of last year on five federal criminal charges, to which he pled “not guilty.” Specifically, Adams was indicted on charges of bribery, conspiracy, fraud, and two counts of soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations concerning allegedly accepting more than $100,000 in free airline tickets and accommodations, in addition to receiving illegal campaign donations from Turkey. Prosecutors say that, in return for the gifts from Turkey, Adams leveraged his immense political influence to aid Turkish officials with their city-level issues, such as obtaining safety clearances for a new Turkish consulate building. As recently as a few weeks ago, federal prosecutors had said they had found “additional criminal conduct” that seemed to signal impending additional charges.
Despite the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s evidence leading to a grand jury indictment – a clear indication that the charges were deemed strong enough for trial – the DOJ’s halt order made no mention of the evidence or any legal concerns about the case. Instead, Deputy Attorney General Bove, who was a personal attorney for Trump on several cases, claimed that the reason for the dismissal is that the case was brought too close to the 2025 Democratic mayoral primary, which will take place nine months after the indictment. Further, Bove asserted that the case prevented Adams from giving his full attention to the Trump administration’s immigration and crime policy. Such a reversal, especially after an indictment and not based on new exculpatory evidence or the theory of the case, is exceedingly unusual and obviously purely political.
This directive to dismiss, especially given its blatantly political and non-evidentiary stated rationale, constitutes a dramatic break from long-time department norms, in which the DOJ functions independently from the political whims of the president. Interaction between the president and the DOJ is not unconstitutional or otherwise legally forbidden. Still, the informal boundary between the two represents a long-standing and vital protocol that operates to prevent the clear conflict of interests between the highest office in the country and a department meant to, in part, faithfully investigate and prosecute high-level corruption. This critical American investigative and prosecutorial structure for legal accountability among politicians falters when those same political figures begin to tip the scales in their favor. As a result, the methods for legal accountability could quickly devolve into a system where the American public must rely on the most powerful politician in the country to, in good faith, self-govern. Or, they would have to depend on the blindly tribal legislatures of contemporary America to both impeach and convict any legitimate transgressor, a process that often requires a two-thirds majority in the corresponding state or federal-level upper chamber.
The dismissal of the Adams investigation and prosecution is another example in a growing list of instances where the DOJ has taken actions that seem to bend to Trump’s political appetite and egocentricity. Both traits have resulted in vulnerabilities that politicians in legal peril are quick to exploit. Correspondingly, Adams’ scheme for snaking his way out of the federal investigation became quite clear by late November of 2024 when he agreed with the claim that the Biden administration had sent the DOJ after him as “payback for his criticism of the party line on migrants.” Unsurprisingly, Adams’ claim falls apart upon closer inspection. The investigation began in 2021 – before Adams took office, before New York City’s influx of migrants, and before his vocal opposition to Biden’s border policies. Adams conveniently sidestepped this fact, leaning into the Trump-esque narrative of political persecution, even as he prepared to cooperate with an aggressive and punitive immigration agenda under Trump. This all came just over a month after Trump, at the Al Smith Dinner in October of last year, echoed Adams’ earlier allusion to his charges being Biden-led political persecution, which he likened to his own legal troubles.
Adams would continue to embrace a Trump-friendly narrative, deriding the Democratic Party platform as focused on “[t]hings like who should be sharing a bathroom. Should men play women’s sports?” Neither of these hot-button issues actually appear in the 2024 Democratic platform, but the latter does in the rather short and caps-lock-infused 2024 Republican platform. Adams further defended Trump from criticism of his authoritarian habits while underlining his eagerness to work with him. Neither Adams’ defense of Trump nor his public enthusiasm for working with the president is exactly damning, and political cooperation is necessary between all levels of government. However, Adams’ pattern of behavior is stroking Trump’s ego in a manner that has become infamously effective in getting the president to do one’s bidding, as was joked about by Mitch McConnell and Lamar Alexander in their visit to Vanderbilt’s General Elections class last semester.
It took little more than a week for Trump to be lured in by Adams’ flattery, publicly opening himself up to the possibility of pardoning Adams once in office. The pattern of praise and reward was becoming clear. Predictably, just a month later, Adams would dine with Trump during a surprise visit to Mar-a-Lago. Soon after, Adams accepted a last-minute invitation to Trump’s inauguration, requiring him to bail on two MLK Jr. events in New York. What exactly was discussed is speculative, of course, but the aforementioned quote from Sasson regarding Adams’ recent “quid-pro-quo” discussions with the Trump DOJ may give some clues. Now, Adams’ federal case has been stopped on the basis of unfounded claims of political persecution and the need for Adams to be at the beck and call of the administration in implementing Trump’s immigration policies. This has left even some Republican voters and officials baffled. Unsurprisingly, members of the Trump administration, like border czar Tom Homan, have denied the “quid-pro-quo” allegations.
In response, a growing number of Democrats have called on New York Governor Kathy Hochul to remove Adams from the mayor’s office, a power vested in her by the New York State Constitution. Hochul spent days in discussions with “key leaders” on whether or not to take such a step. The DOJ’s unethical call to dismiss Adams’ case puts Hochul and fellow New York Democratic leadership in a somewhat difficult position. On one hand, Trump and the DOJ are now in a position to essentially control Adams by hanging this case (which they could reinstate at any moment) over his head. This manipulation from the Trump administration would artificially separate Adams from the platform that New York City voters willfully put in power while simultaneously destabilizing New York City governance, whose true executive leader would become unclear. On the other hand, unilaterally removing an elected official from office before they have technically even been convicted of a crime is questionable conduct. It’s a lose-lose situation. The best case scenario would have been to allow the justice system to thoroughly, in good faith, do its job and determine whether or not Adams is guilty of the alleged felonies. However, it has become clear that the DOJ is willing to do everything in its power to ensure that such a fair proceeding does not occur. Ultimately, sources close to Hochul have said that she does not intend to remove Adams from office, instead opting to implement “guardrails” that would broadly limit the mayor’s power in his dealings with the federal government and empower other government officials to take steps to protect the City from overreach by the Trump administration. All in all, this decision is about as close to a middle ground as one could hope to achieve in such a circumstance.
Image by Bruce Schaff from Wikimedia Commons
