Justice Dept. Seeks to Drop Charges Against NYC Mayor Eric Adams: Live Updates
The Justice Department on Monday told federal prosecutors in Manhattan to drop the corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York, claiming his indictment last fall came too near the 2025 mayoral primary and had limited his ability to cooperate in President Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“You are directed to dismiss” the charges, Emil Bove, the Justice Department’s acting No. 2 official, wrote in a letter to prosecutors, according to two people briefed on its contents.
The remarkable intervention by a Trump political appointee in a public corruption prosecution casts doubt on the future of the case against the mayor. It also raises urgent questions about the administration of justice during Mr. Trump’s second term and casts the independence of federal prosecutors into doubt.
It is not clear how Danielle R. Sassoon, the interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan, will respond to the order to drop the case. A spokesman for Ms. Sassoon’s office declined to comment.
Any motion to dismiss the charges must be filed in court and reviewed by the judge overseeing the case.
In a memo sent to prosecutors in Manhattan, Mr. Bove accused the former U.S. attorney in Manhattan, who oversaw the investigation, of bringing the charges for political gain, according to two people familiar with the matter.
He provided no evidence for that accusation, but said that the charges were part of what he described as the Biden administration’s broader pattern of weaponizing the department for partisan purposes.
Mr. Bove, a former prosecutor in the same office that is prosecuting the mayor, said the request to dismiss the charges was not based on an assessment of the merits of the case or Mr. Adams’s guilt or innocence.
Instead, he claimed the case had been inappropriately timed, and said the indictment would be re-evaluated after this year’s mayoral election.
The Justice Department has generally been reluctant to bring charges against elected officials close to any relevant elections, but Mr. Adams’s indictment came in September, nine months before the June primary.
Mr. Adams, a Democrat, met with Mr. Trump near his Mar-a-Lago estate last month in an unusual display of political, and perhaps personal, outreach. Days later, he attended Mr. Trump’s inauguration in Washington.
Mr. Trump has said that he would consider pardoning Mr. Adams, and characterized the mayor as the victim of politics. The president has likewise claimed without providing evidence that he was politically persecuted by the federal and state prosecutors who brought four indictments against him.
Mr. Bove also said that the removal of Mr. Adams’s security clearance, a result of the indictment, had impeded his capacity to consult with Trump administration officials on carrying out immigration enforcement activities in the nation’s largest city.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have said the investigation began in 2021, three years before Mr. Adams was charged. Just weeks ago, the same prosecutor’s office said it had uncovered “additional criminal conduct” by Mr. Adams.
The Justice Department’s request will likely be met with swift condemnation by Mr. Adams’s critics and political opponents, who are almost sure to claim that the mayor escaped accountability because of the good graces of Mr. Trump, and that he prioritized his own interests over the city’s.
In their indictment of him last September, prosecutors had accused Mr. Adams of accepting luxury travel and illegal foreign campaign contributions in exchange for abusing his office, including by speeding the approval of a new Turkish Consulate in Manhattan despite safety concerns. Mr. Adams pleaded not guilty.
The government’s request to drop the charges against Mr. Adams would typically be filed in a motion to the judge overseeing the case. The judge, Dale E. Ho of Federal District Court in Manhattan, may question the decision, but under legal precedent, he has limited power to refuse the request.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
