‘It was never going to be me’: How Trump’s DOJ sparked a crisis and mass resignations over the Eric Adams case
CNN
The morning after the mass resignation of prosecutors sparked a crisis inside the Trump Justice Department, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove led a meeting with the Justice Department’s public integrity section. His message: they had to choose one career lawyer to file a dismissal of the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, according to three people briefed on the meeting.
The morning after the mass resignation of prosecutors sparked a crisis inside the Trump Justice Department, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove led a meeting with the Justice Department’s public integrity section. His message: They had to choose one career lawyer to file a dismissal of the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, according to three people briefed on the meeting. Bove didn’t make an explicit threat to fire anyone for refusing – but Thursday’s trail of resignations from prosecutors in New York and the public integrity unit made clear the stakes of the demand. After Friday’s meeting with Bove, the public integrity lawyers met separately to discuss a strategy. A mass resignation was among the options that was considered, but in the end, most coalesced around picking one person to file the dismissal as a way to end the stand-off, two of the people briefed said. Late Friday, Bove, along with prosecutors Ed Sullivan and Antoinette Bacon, entered the filing that could end the case after an extraordinary wave of resignations from the Southern District of New York and the Justice Department public integrity section that’s shaken the foundation of a Trump administration that says it wants to end the “weaponization” of DOJ. Over the past 36 hours, seven prosecutors in New York and Washington – including the Trump-installed acting US attorney in the Southern District of New York and the top career prosecutors overseeing public corruption cases – have resigned rather than carry out the order to dismiss the corruption case against Adams, a Democrat. The prosecutors have decried Bove’s Monday order to drop the charges – which cited in part Adams’ role as mayor helping the Trump administration combat illegal immigration – as a bargain amounting to a “quid pro quo.” The prosecutors who resigned in New York were not Biden appointees. The acting US attorney for the Southern District, Danielle Sassoon, who was elevated by Trump, clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. And Assistant US Attorney Hagan Scotten, a line prosecutor who resigned in a blistering letter Friday, once clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts.
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