A federal judge has asked Department of Justice prosecutors to show up to court on Wednesday to explain their sudden decision to dismiss the corruption indictment against the New York City mayor, Eric Adams.
The order comes on the heels of a wave of resignations from federal prosecutors, who refused demands from top Trump justice officials to quash the case. Adams, a Democrat in America’s biggest blue city, ran for mayor opposing Trump’s immigration agenda, but has since the president’s re-election publicly offered to assist in the White House’s war on sanctuary cities.
In an order on Tuesday, citing past case law and federal court procedure, the district court judge Dale Ho noted that while the Department of Justice’s decision to drop a case has great weight, his court must have sufficient factual information to agree to a dismissal and be satisfied that the rationale for dismissal is substantial.
Last year, federal prosecutors in the southern district of New York indicted Adams for allegedly accepting illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks in exchange for doing the bidding of the Turkish government–accusations which Adams has denied.
In a memo last week demanding the dismissal of the case, Trump’s acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove did not call into question the strength of the case, instead arguing that the charges had “unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior Administration”.
Critics of Trump and Adams have argued that the memo evinced an explicit quid-pro-quo: dropping the case in exchange for Adams’s acquiescence with federal immigration enforcement.
In an amicus curiae letter, filed on Monday, Nathaniel Akerman, a former southern district of New York prosecutor, argued to the judge that because of the “corrupt” nature of this bargain, Ho should deny the motion to dismiss the indictment and consider appointing an “independent special prosecutor to continue the prosecution”.
Adams’s counsel has denied that his client engaged in a “quid pro quo”. But in an appearance on Fox News with Adams last week, Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, noted that if Adams failed to follow through on his promises to cooperate with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he would “be up his butt” asking “where the hell is the agreement we came to?”
On Tuesday, the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, met with top party leaders to discuss growing calls that she use her executive authority to remove the mayor from office.
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After the meeting at the governor’s Manhattan office, the Rev Al Sharpton, a former Adams ally, told reporters that Hochul was not going to make any decision until after the hearing in federal court.
