This afternoon, Manhattan Federal Judge Dale Ho has ordered the Department of Justice to appear to explain their reasons for their surprising motion to suspend the five criminal charges against Mayor Adams. Good luck with that as there is no legitimate reason to temporarily dismiss the case.
Ho should make the DOJ lawyers squirm in the large ceremonial courtroom before what will be a big crowd of spectators as they try to justify their turnaround as nothing is wrong with the evidence in the case. Nothing is wrong with the witnesses, no one recanted or died. Nothing is wrong with the prosecution. Nothing is wrong with anything.
Congress has not passed any new criminal statutes. The U.S. Supreme Court has not issued a decision forcing a new interpretation of the anti-corruption laws. What changed was that the Trump administration wants the case to pause so Adams can help them on immigration enforcement. As more than a half dozen career federal prosecutors in New York and D.C. who have resigned in last week have said with their principled departures that is wrong, a quid pro quo.
And it’s all on paper from Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove — a former Trump personal criminal defense lawyer — who put it in writing either as an act of stupidity or brazenness. Bove was explicit that this decision had nothing to do with the merits of the case or the evidence gathered. Instead, it had everything to do with the administration’s desire not to interfere in Adams’ reelection campaign and have the mayor assist them in their immigration enforcement efforts.
Bove made the mistake of directing this corrupt order to Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, who despite being a staunch and longtime conservative understood her role foremost as a public servant charged with upholding the law. She promptly resigned via a multi-page letter that not only excoriated Bove’s obviously corrupt ask but made clear that the office had been gearing up to bring additional charges. Multiple other DOJ officials subsequently resigned rather than be made complicit in this farce.
That’s all going to be a tall order to explain to a federal judge whose calling of this hearing already signals some skepticism about the parties’ motivations. Adams, freed from an April trial, agreed to the lopsided deal, where the case can resume whenever Bove and Attorney General Pam Bondi want it to.
The mayor, suffering now from the resignations of four deputy mayors, would be better off making his case to a jury than be left in limbo by the feds. He says he is innocent, while Bove makes no such statement, only that it all needs to wait until later on.
What Ho will do with all this is unclear. The judge would be theoretically able to reject the motion to dismiss and appoint a special prosecutor. Still, at the very least, he’ll get a chance to press the government attorneys about how exactly this straightforward exchange of dropped charges for official action on the administration’s policy priorities is not definitionally an improper quid pro quo. We doubt they’ll be able to get out of the box that Bove has boxed them into.