The Justice Department's order to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams will test whether a fiercely independent federal prosecutor's office can resist efforts by President Donald Trump's administration to rein it in.
The U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York charged people in the president's orbit during Trump's first term. According to the U.S. Attorney at the time, Geoffrey Berman, SDNY also fended off pressure from Washington, D.C., to prosecute Trump's opponents.
The Justice Department's order on Monday for SDNY to dismiss charges against Adams, who has sought to curry Trump's favor in recent months, raises questions about whether the office can maintain a similar level of autonomy during Trump's second term, a half-dozen former SDNY prosecutors told Reuters.
"For an office that has historically demonstrated independence from Washington and the political process, this a major test of the office's traditions," said Harry Sandick, a former SDNY prosecutor and current partner at law firm Patterson Belknap.
A spokesperson for the SDNY U.S. Attorney's office declined to comment. Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
To be sure, as a part of the Justice Department that belongs to the executive branch, the Southern District's historic autonomy from officials in Washington is more a matter of norms than enshrined in law.
And while presidents of both parties have traditionally left federal prosecutors in the Southern District and elsewhere free to make their own decisions about which cases to bring, the president has broad authority to set the Justice Department's priorities.
Still, the order to drop the Adams case comes as Trump, a Republican, has overhauled the Justice Department to end what he calls its weaponization against political opponents during former Democratic President Joe Biden's administration, but which critics say threatens to subject the department to political whims.
In a memorandum on Monday, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered SDNY's Acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon to drop the September 2024 indictment charging Adams with accepting bribes from Turkish officials. Prosecutors have not yet formally asked the judge overseeing the case to dismiss it.
In the memo Bove - Trump's former personal lawyer and a political appointee - said the decision had nothing to do with the merits of the case. He said the charges could interfere with Adams' re-election campaign and were distracting him from helping Trump crack down on illegal immigration.
The charges were brought during Biden's administration, and Adams, a Democrat, asserted the case was brought in retaliation for his criticism of the former president's immigration policy.
Several Democrats are expected to contest the party primary in June, the winner of which is likely to win the November general election to lead the left-leaning city.
Trump, who in 2023 pleaded not guilty to four sets of criminal indictments that he said were politically motivated, has expressed sympathy for Adams. Trump was convicted in one case and is appealing, while two others were dismissed after his election victory.
Adams pleaded not guilty in September. On Tuesday, he said he never broke the law, adding, "I thank the Justice Department for its honesty."
'EVEN THINGS OUT'
Efforts by Washington to exert influence over SDNY are far from unprecedented.
According to Berman's 2022 memoir, a Justice Department official in 2018 asked his office to bring charges against Democrats to "even things out" after SDNY charged two Trump loyalists, including the president's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen.
After Cohen pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws during Trump's successful 2016 campaign for the presidency, Berman said former Attorney General Bill Barr asked his office to stop further investigations until the Justice Department could review the legal basis for the charges.
In both cases, Berman said his office resisted.
Barr and Berman declined to comment.
The entreaties Berman described came during oral conversations, whereas Bove's directive to Sassoon came in the form of a written memorandum obtained by several media outlets including Reuters.
Sassoon, a one-time clerk for the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, assumed leadership of SDNY last month. She is now under "unprecedented pressure," said Joshua Naftalis, a former SDNY prosecutor.
"Where the rubber meets the road is whether Danielle Sassoon complies with the directive from the acting deputy attorney general or declines and potentially resigns," Naftalis said.
