‘Full Meltdown!’ CNN’s Kaitlan Collins And Evan Perez Stunned By Trump DOJ’s ‘Spiraling Crisis’ Over Adams Case

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins and correspondent Evan Perez were stunned by the “full meltdown” at President Donald Trump’s Justice Department over the decision to drop the case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams — touching off a raft of resignations.

Acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon resigned Thursday in a blistering letter rather than follow an order to drop the Adams case by Trump Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove. Acting department heads Kevin Driscoll and John Keller and three other DOJ public integrity prosecutors resigned when the case was kicked over to them in turn for disposal.

On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins led with the stunning news, calling it the “Thursday Night Massacre,” and Perez called it a “full meltdown” and a “spiraling crisis”:

COLLINS: Evan, I mean, people are calling this the Thursday Night Massacre–

EVAN PEREZ: Yes.

COLLINS: –is how this is happening, here in Washington.

I was texting you earlier, in the press conference at the White House, to confirm it was three people who had resigned. And you said, Actually, now it’s up to five.

What is happening behind closed doors tonight?

PEREZ: Yes, look, I mean, this is a full meltdown, and this is a spiraling crisis, for the Justice Department.

And look, there’s a couple of goals here. One of the things that the President, and the Attorney General, have done in their opening days, is they’re gutting public corruption prosecutions. They’re scaling back the FCPA, which is the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. They are putting a pause on a lot of investigations, and they’re going to make it difficult to do public corruption cases. That much is clear.

We — this is a part of a broader effort, right? And there’s a reason. Donald Trump has been pursued by these people. These people, the public corruption prosecutors in particular, have been involved in some of these cases, and that’s part of his annoyance with the Justice Department. But the thing that emerged today, that I found really extraordinary, was this new theory that we saw from Emil Bove, in his memo and his letter, which is essentially that it’s improper to prosecute the Mayor of New York City, because it interferes with him being able to do his job, which is, again, look, it’s a theory that worked kind of well for Trump, and his legal team, for prosecuting him. It kind of worked in the end.

But it is — that has never been a rule for the Justice Department, with a mayor. I mean, as much as we love New York City, it’s not the presidency.

COLLINS: Yes, and he’s essentially arguing that this isn’t — because the merits of the case that they wanted dropped, it’s–

PEREZ: Yes.

COLLINS: –more because of that.

Tom, Adams’ attorney tonight, Alex Spiro, is denying these claims that this was a quid pro quo that happened here. I mean, this is, meeting, clearly, was remarkable. They said, I don’t know what ‘amounted to’ the quid pro quo means… We were asked if the case had any bearing on national security and immigration enforcement, and we truthfully answered that it did.

But is that something that prosecutors at the Southern District of New York would take into consideration?

TOM DUPREE, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: No, look, I mean, it’s whole thing. I mean, from my perspective, I don’t like what happened. And I look at this, and I think I’m all for de-weaponizing the Justice Department. But the way that you de-weaponize the Justice Department is by taking politics out of the equation.

And what seems to have happened here, in these really extraordinary, remarkable dueling letters, from the Deputy Attorney General, and the former head of the prosecutor of the SDNY, it really lays out the story of what happened is that, from her perspective, the administration was expressly infusing a law enforcement decision with political considerations. Which is exactly the opposite of what Trump had campaigned on, and how he promised to reform the Justice Department.

That’s why, as a rule of law conservative, what went down today is very disturbing.

COLLINS: Also, as a conservative, how do they attack the acting U.S. Attorney here. I mean, she has some pretty sterling conservative credentials.

DUPREE: She is gold — the gold — Scalia clerk.

PEREZ: He — he — Donald Trump (ph) elevated her.

(CROSSTALK) COLLINS: –conservative Republican.

DUPREE: Yes.

PEREZ: Donald Trump appointed her.

COLLINS: How did he elevate her?

PEREZ: He appointed her as the acting U.S. Attorney while Jay Clayton is awaiting his nomination, right? So, she was–

COLLINS: Who’s going to be the permanent U.S. attorney–

PEREZ: Right.

COLLINS: –in that office.

PEREZ: She was named by Emil Bove, and the leadership at DOJ, because of her Republican and her conservative–

DUPREE: She is no bleeding-heart liberal.

PEREZ: She is not.

DUPREE: She is conservative as they come. We want people like Danielle Sassoon–

PEREZ: Yes.

DUPREE: –in the Justice Department.

COLLINS: OK.

DUPREE: I say that as a conservative.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.