‘Smacks of a Bargain’: Judge Swipes at Trump DOJ While Dismissing Eric Adams Case
(AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
The federal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams were dropped by a judge on Wednesday, following the Trump Justice Department’s move to have the case dismissed.
Judge Dale Ho agreed to dismiss the case “with prejudice,” meaning the case cannot be retried later on the same charges. Adams was accused in court of having fast-tracked the safety permitting of building for the Turkish government in exchange for luxury travel gifts. Trump DOJ pressure to dismiss the case led to widespread resignations in the Justice Department earlier in the year and accusations of a “quid pro quo” between Adams and the Trump administration.
Judge Ho noted in his ruling Wednesday to dismiss the case that he did not believe the charges against Adams, brought by a DOJ led by Biden appointees, were in any way politically motivated. Judge Ho wrote, “there is no evidence — zero — that they had improper motives” in the DOJ charging Adams, but did take a swipe at the Trump officials desire to dismiss the charges.
“Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the Indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions,” Ho wrote, later adding, “Ultimately, because the decision to discontinue a prosecution belongs primarily to a political branch of government, it is the public’s judgment, and not this Court’s, that truly matters.”
In February, Judge Ho vacated Adams’s upcoming trial date, but appointed conservative attorney Paul Clement to argue against the DOJ’s decision to drop the charges against Adams.
The ruling came after acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon, a lifelong Republican, resigned in protest of the Trump DOJ’s moves to dismiss the case. “Adams’s attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed,” Sassoon said in a scathing letter to the DOJ.
Judge Ho enlisting Clement to argue against the Trump DOJ is also notable, given Clement’s status in conservative circles. Bloomberg recently referred to Clement as “the superstar advocate who won a major Supreme Court gun rights case” while lauding his other legal credentials.
CNN reported at the time on the DOJ’s argument for dropping the charges, noting, “The Justice Department was represented earlier this week by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, one of Trump’s former personal attorneys, after protests from DOJ prosecutors. Bove defended the motion to drop charges against Adams, stressing that the DOJ headquarters has prosecutorial discretion and a prosecution of Adams interferes with the Trump administration’s immigration initiatives in New York City. He also pushed back against claims of a quid pro quo between Adams and the Trump administration.
“I want to be clear I think the only question is whether there’s any basis to believe that I made these representations to the court in bad faith, and the answer to that is absolutely not,” Bove argued.
This is a breaking story and has been updated.
