DOJ Attorney Danielle Sassoon
Dear Commons Community,
In response to a federal order to drop criminal charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, seven people, including the acting chief, a deputy assistant attorney general and three deputy chiefs have resigned from the Department of Justice.
Adams was accused in November 2023, of accepting over $100,000 in travel perks from Turkish nationals in exchange for expediting Manhattan’s Turkish consulate’s opening.
In September last year, under President Joe Biden, a federal grand jury announced they would be indicting the mayor, a move Adams believes was politically motivated due to his outspoken opposition to housing migrant asylum seekers in New York City.
On Feb. 10, Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York to drop Adams’ corruption charges.
To drop the charges, two attorneys at the U.S. Attorney office for the Southern District of New York must sign the motion, per CNBC.
One resignation, announced in a letter to newly-sworn in U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, from attorney Danielle Sassoon, said the government did not have a “valid basis to seek dismissal” of Adams’ charges.
The resignation was accepted by Bove in a letter released by The New York Times. Bove wrote, “This decision is based on your choice to continue pursuing a politically motivated prosecution despite an express instruction to dismiss the case.”
“You lost sight of the oath that you took when you started at the Department of Justice by suggesting that you retain 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.
As an aside, Sassoon, who clerked for the late conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and is a member of the right-leaning Federalist Society, was appointed by Trump0.
Another resignation letter came from an assistant U.S. attorney in Sassoon’s office, Hagan Scotten.
He ended his resignation letting by saying, “I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.”
Adams maintains he did not accept bribes from Turkey and was never offered a trade of authority for the dismissal of his criminal charges.
What an embarrassment Adams and Bove are for an honest judicial system.
Tony
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