The Department of Justice has filed a motion to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams after a series of top prosecutors resigned in protest this week.
An attorney in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, Edward Sullivan, signed the paperwork Friday evening, which was required to move forward with seeking the formal dismissal of charges.
Along with another career official in the criminal division, Toni Bacon, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove also signed the papers.
The move ends an extraordinary stalemate between prosecutors in the department’s Public Integrity Section and Bove, who earlier this week instructed prosecutors in the Southern District of New York to dismiss the case against Adams.
That request led to a scathing letter from acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, suggesting Bove and other members of DOJ leadership were explicitly aware of a quid pro quo suggested by Adams’ attorneys, saying Adams’ vocal support of Trump’s immigration policies would be boosted by dismissing the indictment against him.
Sassoon then resigned, later joined by three other top supervisory officials within the Public Integrity Section in Washington, D.C., where the case had been reassigned.
The impasse continued into Friday when many of the section’s leaders refused to sign the paperwork and also resigned in protest, before Bove gathered the rest of the section earlier Friday to tell them that there would be serious consequences if no one stepped forward to sign the paperwork, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Now that the paperwork is filed, a federal judge will still have to decide whether the case can be dismissed.
Before the paperwork was filed, yet another federal prosecutor resigned, suggesting only a “fool” or a “coward” would file the motion sought by Bove.
“No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives,” Hagan Scotten, the assistant United States attorney for Southern District of New York, said in his resignation letter.
Chad Mizelle, Bondi’s chief of staff, pushed back against the defiant prosecutors in a statement Friday afternoon contending Adams’ prosecution was politically motivated.
“The fact that those who indicted and prosecuted the case refused to follow a direct command is further proof of the disordered and ulterior motives of the prosecutors. Such individuals have no place at DOJ,” he said.
Adams was indicted in September on five counts, with federal prosecutors alleging he accepted illegal gifts, including plane upgrades and hotel stays, from Turkish businessmen and officials in exchange for preferential treatment when he was Brooklyn borough president and later as mayor.
The indictment also alleged Adams received illegal campaign straw donations from Turkish nationals.
Adams pleaded not guilty, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and claimed without any basis that he was being politically targeted by the Biden administration, even though the probe covers many years before Biden was in office.
Adams’ lawyer denied there was any quid pro quo between Adams and the Trump administration before DOJ leadership instructed prosecutors to drop the case without prejudice, meaning it can be re-filed.
“The idea that there was a quid pro quo is a total lie,” attorney Alex Spiro said. “We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us.”
Adams appeared with Trump administration “border czar” Tom Homans on “Fox and Friends” on Friday morning.
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