Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove sent a strong message Thursday to the U.S. attorney who chose to resign rather than drop the case against New York Mayor Eric Adams.
Bove wrote in an 8-page letter that the DOJ would “not tolerate the insubordination and apparent misconduct reflected in the approach” acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon and her office took in handling the issue.
“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 to Sassoon.
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Sassoon explained in her resignation letter that dismissing the Adams indictment would be inconsistent with her “ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good-faith arguments before the courts.”
“I remain baffled by the rushed and superficial process by which this decision was reached, in seeming collaboration with Adams’s counsel and without my direct input on the ultimate stated rationales for dismissal,” she wrote.
Bove’s response highlighted several issues with the case, including “questionable behavior” by the prosecution team led by her predecessor and the timing of the charges during Adams’ 2025 campaign. He also said the prosecution was interfering with Adams’ ability to cooperate on illegal immigration enforcement, endangering the lives of “millions of New Yorkers.”
“It is not for local federal officials such as yourself, who lack access to all relevant information, to question these judgements within the Justice Department’s chain of command,” he said.
Adams was indicted in September on bribery, campaign finance and fraud charges for allegedly accepting lavish benefits from Turkey.
While Bove left open the possibility of bringing a new indictment in the future, Sassoon wrote that this creates the ethical problem of threatening to take action if Adams’ cooperation “with enforcing the immigration laws proves unsatisfactory to the Department.” She also noted her office proposed a superseding indictment to include an obstruction charge based on evidence Adams destroyed evidence and provided false information to the FBI.
The former Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, announced his resignation in November. Sassoon was temporarily appointed to the position in January while Trump’s choice for the role, former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton, awaits confirmation.
Sassoon was one of six officials to resign Thursday over the order to dismiss the case, according to Reuters.
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Hagan Scotten, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, also resigned on Friday, stating any assistant U.S. attorney “would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way.”
“If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion,” he wrote to Bove. “But it was never going to be me.”
Bove found one attorney, career prosecutor Ed Sullivan, to file the motion to dismiss charges on Friday after giving all of the nearly 30 public integrity section attorneys an hour to decide who would do it, according to Reuters. The attorneys considered a mass resignation before Sullivan volunteered, the outlet reported.
Bove previously directed the FBI to identify agents who worked on Jan. 6 related cases.
“Let me be clear: No FBI employee who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner with respect to January 6 investigations is at risk of termination or other penalties,” he wrote in an email, according to CNN.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.