Another prosecutor in Eric Adams’ corruption case resigns. But why?
Another prosecutor of New York Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption cases stepped down. As he stepped down the eyebrows raised on the future of this case.
Assistant US attorney Hagan Scotten stepped down on Friday after receiving directives from the Trump’s justice department to abandon the case, becoming the latest federal attorney to resign in protest of this unusual demand.
“No system of liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives,” Scotten said.
The Democratic mayor faced increasing calls to step down, while pressure grew for New York Governor Kathy Hochul to exercise her authority to remove him as the head of America’s largest city, AFP News Agency reported.
Danielle Sassoon, appointed by President Donald Trump as acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, tendered her resignation to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday, three days after receiving instructions to drop the Adams case.
Bove, previously Trump’s personal lawyer, requested the charges’ dismissal, claiming Adams’s prosecution hindered his “ability to devote full attention and resources to illegal immigration and violent crime.”
Scotten’s email to Bove stated “our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials.”
“If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion,” he said. “But it was never going to be me.”
Who is Hagan Scotten?
Scotten, a decorated US Army veteran and Harvard Law School graduate, previously clerked for conservative US Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, and Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee to the Supreme Court.
Sassoon, who graduated from Yale Law School and belongs to the conservative Federalist Society, headed the notable 2023 prosecution of disgraced crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried.
Several senior members of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section in Washington, which handles corruption cases, have also submitted their resignations this week.
What is the case all about?
Adams, the first sitting New York mayor to face criminal charges, entered a not guilty plea in September to fraud and bribery charges, claiming he was being targeted for criticising then-president Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
Refusing to resign, he intends to seek reelection in November.
Trump supported Adams last year, stating he was being prosecuted “for speaking out against open borders.”
In an MSNBC interview on Thursday, Governor Hochul criticised the Justice Department’s involvement in the Adams case as “unbelievably unprecedented.”
“The Bondi Administration in that Department of Justice is already showing they’re corrupt,” AFP news agency quoted her saying said.
Regarding Adams’s potential removal, Hochul stated: “The allegations are extremely concerning and serious, but I cannot, as the Governor of this state, have a knee jerk, politically motivated reaction.”
The Justice Department, which Trump claims has unfairly prosecuted him, has undergone extensive reorganisation since the Republican took office, with numerous high-ranking officials being dismissed, demoted or reassigned.
The dismissals included members of special counsel Jack Smith’s office, who had brought two now-abandoned criminal cases against Trump.
