3 top U.S. prosecutors resign over order to drop NYC Mayor Eric Adams corruption case

Three senior federal prosecutors resigned Thursday in connection with the department’s decision to drop the criminal corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, resigned, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office said. Her decision came three days after Justice Department leadership instructed her to drop the criminal corruption case against Adams.

Sassoon, a veteran prosecutor who helped lead the prosecution and conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried, was appointed interim U.S. attorney by the Trump administration last month.

Emil Bove, the acting No. 2 official at the Justice Department, accepted Sassoon’s resignation, and placed three assistant U.S. attorneys who worked the case on leave pending investigations of their conduct by the Office of the Attorney General and the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, according to a letter from Bove obtained by NPR.

“You lost sight of the oath that you took when you started at the Department of Justice by suggesting that you retain a discretion to interpret the Constitution in a manner inconsistent with the policies of a democratically elected President and a Senate-confirmed Attorney General,” Bove wrote in the letter.

One of the three assistant U.S. attorneys placed on leave is Hagan Scotten, a Bronze star winner and a graduate of Harvard Law School, who previously clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts.

Later Thursday, John Keller, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, and Kevin Driscoll, the senior-most career Justice Department official leading the Criminal Division, also resigned after being asked to take over the Adams case, according to two sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

Adams was indicted last year on corruption charges, with a trial scheduled for April.

A Justice Department memo made public Monday called for federal charges against him to be shelved “without prejudice.” Adams has long said he’s innocent of any criminal wrongdoing.

In court filings, his attorneys accused U.S. attorneys of mishandling the case, in part by leaking sensitive and privileged information to the media. The indictment filed last September in federal court in Manhattan alleged Adams used his official positions with New York City to leverage “illegal campaign contributions and luxury travel.”

A former senior Justice Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely, called the fallout from the Adams case, “the worst we’ve seen so far (from the new DOJ) and that’s a high bar.” The former official said the idea of dropping the Adams case in this way was “jaw dropping, shocking.”