Federal Judge Refuses to Drop Charges Against Eric Adams
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
A federal judge declined to immediately dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams at the request of President Donald Trump’s Department of Justicen Friday, despite a push from Trump’s Justice Department.
Judge Dale Ho vacated Adams’s upcoming trial date on Friday, but appointed conservative attorney Paul Clement to argue against the DOJ’s decision to drop the charges against Adams.
The Trump administration’s move to have the charges against Adams dropped has resulted in an avalanche of resignations at the DOJ, with top prosecutors accusing Adams and the DOJ of engaging in a “quid pro quo.”
Acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon, a lifelong Republican, resigned last Thursday amid the move to dismiss charges against Adams. “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 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 developing story and has been updated.
