NEW YORK — A federal judge on Friday canceled the corruption trial for New York City Mayor Eric Adams and appointed counsel to advise the court about the Justice Department’s controversial request to drop charges against the Democrat.
Judge Dale E. Ho’s written order means he won’t decide before mid-March whether to grant the dismissal of the case against the embattled mayor of the nation’s largest city.
On Friday, Ho said he appointed Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush, to present arguments on the government’s case-drop request.
The judge noted that courts are normally “aided in their decision-making through our system of adversarial testing, which can be particularly helpful in cases presenting unusual fact patterns or in cases of great public importance.”
He said a Wednesday hearing had “no adversarial testing of the Government’s position,” and the absence made it important to appoint Clement to assist the judge in reaching a conclusion.
At the hearing, Acting Deputy U.S. Attorney General Emil Bove defended his request to drop charges, saying they came too close to Adams’ reelection campaign and would distract from the mayor’s assistance to the Trump administration’s law-and-order priorities.
Adams confirmed at the hearing that he knew charges could later be reinstated — a feature of the request that has led some legal experts to speculate that the mayor can only escape trial if he helps Trump’s plans to round up New Yorkers who are in the country illegally.
Adams was indicted in September on charges alleging he accepted over $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and travel perks from a Turkish official and others seeking to buy influence while he was Brooklyn borough president. He faces multiple challengers in June’s Democratic primary. He has pleaded not guilty and insisted he is innocent.
Ho said he wanted all parties and Clement to address the legal standard for dismissing charges, whether a court may consider materials beyond the motion itself and under what circumstances additional procedural steps and further inquiry was necessary.
He also said he wants to know when dismissal without the ability to reinstate charges is appropriate. He set a briefs deadline for March 7. Oral arguments, if necessary, would be March 14.
In his order Friday, Ho said Clement could review a 1977 case in which a judge rejected the government’s demand to dismiss a case.
University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said Clement was a conservative lawyer, a sensible choice to be a neutral adviser for a recently appointed judge whose previous experience was primarily civil matters.
Late Thursday, three former U.S. attorneys — from New York, Connecticut and New Jersey — submitted a letter urging Ho to “hear from parties other than the government and the defendant in deciding about the appropriate next steps.”
In a letter to Ho Friday, Adams’ lawyer Alex Spiro cited Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Thursday remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference that the indictment against Adams was “incredibly weak” and needed to be dismissed to end the “weaponization of the government.” He urged Ho to dismiss the charges based on “the evidence and on the law.”
The Justice Department did not respond to a comment request.
Adams will not be required to attend future hearings, the judge said.
That could help mitigate some political damage for Adams without the spectacle of court appearances while he is trying to convince the public that the case isn’t distracting him from running the city.
Adams has sought to project calm as questions over his independence have sparked a political crisis for him.
This week, four of his top deputies resigned. Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that she had for now decided against removing Adams from office but would propose legislation to enhance state oversight of City Hall as a way to reestablish trust with New Yorkers.
Bove’s initial request last week to then-interim U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon to drop charges against Adams was rejected, and she resigned, accusing Bove of dangling a quid pro quo that would ensure help from Adams in the immigration fight in return for dismissal of his criminal case.
Another prosecutor, Hagan Scotten, told Bove in a resignation letter that it would take a “fool” or a “coward” to meet Bove’s demand, “but it was never going to be me.”
In all, seven prosecutors, including five high-ranking prosecutors at the Justice Department in Washington, had resigned before Bove made the dismissal request himself, along with two other Washington prosecutors.
—Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz, Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington and Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York, contributed to this story.
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