Prosecutor quits after order to drop corruption case against N.Y. Mayor Eric Adams
"Adams was charged in September with wire fraud, bribery and seeking illegal campaign donations.
NEW YORK — Hagan Scotten, the lead prosecutor in Mayor Eric Adams’s federal corruption case, has quit over the Justice Department’s demand that the case be dismissed, calling any lawyer who would move in court to toss the matter a “fool” or “coward,” according to a copy of a letter obtained Friday.
Scotten wrote a resignation letter to acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove in which he accuses the official of abandoning his legal ethics to do the bidding of President Donald Trump. While he considered a move to drop the charges a serious mistake that some observers would view based on their negative opinions of the Trump administration, he did not share those views, Scotten wrote.
“But any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way,” he wrote.
“If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion,” Scotten wrote. “But it was never going to be me.”
Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, and a team of Justice Department officials in Washington, resigned this week after a demand by the Trump administration to drop corruption charges against Adams, people familiar with the resignations said.
Sassoon, who was the top federal prosecutor in New York, wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi that she could not in good faith ask a judge to drop the charges against Adams. “The law does not support a dismissal, and because I am confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged,” Sassoon wrote.
Bove, a former personal defense lawyer for Trump who previously worked as a prosecutor in the Southern District, responded to Sassoon’s decision in a letter accusing her of insubordination.
Bove said he was moving oversight of the Adams case to Washington to get the charges dismissed.
President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he was not involved in the case and did not ask for the charges to be dismissed.
Others who submitted their resignations Thursday included Kevin Driscoll, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s criminal division, and John D. Keller, acting chief of the department’s Public Integrity Section, which investigates public officials and election crimes, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it. People briefed on the matter said three prosecutors who also left worked with Keller in the Public Integrity Section.
Adams was charged in September with wire fraud, bribery and seeking illegal campaign donations. Prosecutors alleged he had problematic relationships with wealthy foreigners and accepted travel upgrades, luxury hotel rooms and other perks from Turkish businesspeople and at least one government official. He pleaded not guilty."
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