Justice Department directs prosecutors to drop federal corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams – CNN

The Department of Justice is moving to drop the federal corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, according to a memo obtained by CNN.

The memo, which was sent by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, instructed the acting United States attorney for the Southern District to dismiss the charges “as soon as is practicable”— subject to several conditions, including a review by the Southern District after the November mayoral election.

The Justice Department last year brought public corruption charges against Adams, a Democrat, in the first prosecution of a sitting mayor in the city’s modern history. Adams pleaded not guilty, and the case was set to go to trial this spring.

In a statement, Alex Spiro, an attorney for Adams who has also represented Trump ally Elon Musk, said in part, “As I said from the outset, the mayor is innocent — and he would prevail. Today he has.” Spiro also told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in response to the news: “He would have been acquitted in 45 minutes.”

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A spokesperson for the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment. A spokesperson for Adams’ administration declined to comment and referred CNN to the mayor’s attorney.

The memo cites two reasons for ordering the dismissal: the Justice Department’s opinion that the case has been tainted by publicity and that it is impeding with Adams’ ability to do his job as mayor, including cooperating with President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

“The pending prosecution has 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,” writes Bove, a former prosecutor in New York himself.

The request to drop the case against the mayor is sure to raise questions about the independence of what is considered the most prestigious US attorney’s office in the nation, known for its independence from Washington in prosecuting high-profile, complex cases of public corruption, national security and financial crimes.

Bove’s memo notes the DOJ is issuing its order “without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based,” and does not mention a potential pardon for Adams.

The move also comes after the Adams’ reticence to publicly back Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the final stretch of the presidential campaign and his increasingly warm response to Trump’s election fanned rumors that the mayor was angling for a pardon.

The call to dismiss the charges falls on acting US Attorney Danielle Sassoon, who last month wrote a letter to the court defending the government’s case against Adams, describing an effort by the mayor’s attorney to cast the prosecution as purely political as a distraction “to shift the focus away from the evidence of his guilt.”

While it’s not clear how Sassoon will respond, it will mark a significant turnaround for the office, which just last month said it had uncovered evidence of “additional criminal conduct” by the mayor.

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While the decision might lead to upheaval among the office’s rank-and-file prosecutors, Sassoon is not likely to remain in her post very long. Trump has said he intends to nominate former Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Jay Clayton to head the office.

Adams, who is up for reelection this fall, was indicted in September on charges of related to bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy and soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals in exchange for political favors.

The indictment alleged Adams’ illegal actions stretched back to 2014, when he was Brooklyn Borough president. Prosecutors said Adams received luxury travel benefits including hotel room upgrades, meals and other perks from a Turkish official. In exchange, prosecutors say Adams pressured a New York City Fire Department official to grant permits to open a Turkish consular building that had failed to pass inspection.

Former US Attorney Damian Williams, who brought the charges, said the mayor had “engaged in a long-running conspiracy.”

Adams has denied all wrongdoing. Since his indictment, he has frequently said the prosecution was politically motivated by his criticism of the Biden administration’s response to an influx of migrant arrivals in the city beginning in the spring of 2022.

“It cannot be ignored that Mayor Adams criticized the prior Administration’s immigration policies before the charges were filed,” Bove writes in the memo.

The case was scheduled to go to trial this spring, just months before the city’s Democratic primary, where Adams is facing a crowded field of challengers.

For months, Adams has fended off speculation that he would leave the race. During a recent interfaith breakfast with the city’s clergy leaders, Adams called rumors that he planned to resign “stupid.”

Several of the city’s Democratic lawmakers have increased their criticism in recent weeks, suggesting the mayor has been slow to respond to Trump’s policies — including his executive order to cut off federal funding to cities that do not cooperate with the administration’s immigration crackdown.

Speculation about a potential pardon or dismissal of the case began in October, shortly after the charges were brought.

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Adams was coy in the lead-up to the presidential election, at one point declining to say Harris’ name when asked multiple times whether he would vote for the Democratic nominee.

In October, Trump appeared to express sympathy with the mayor and suggested his prosecution was the result of political retribution for his criticism of how the Biden administration handled the migrant crisis.

“We were persecuted, Eric. I was persecuted, and so are you, Eric,” Trump told the mayor during his remarks at the Al Smith charity dinner in New York.

Adams, who was registered as a Republican in the 1990s, also attended Trump’s inauguration and visited him at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last month.

Adams was having dinner Monday night with John Catsimatidis, a billionaire supermarket mogul and a supporter of Trump, when he received news of the memo.

“He felt relieved, relieved. He was taken aback,” Catsimatidis told CNN.

“I said to him, President Trump felt his pain — he feels the same people that went after him went after Adams,” Catsimatidis said.

This story has been updated with additional information.
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Source: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/10/politics/eric-adams-charges-dropped/index.html