Justice Officials Resign in Protest Over New York Mayor’s Case

Today’s lead story is by four reporters and available online here.

The story leads with the resignation of Manhattan’s lead prosecutor, who refused to obey an order to drop the corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams.

I was one of about 19 people in my left-leaning neighborhood to vote for Adams, a former police officer, in the mayoral race. My reasoning, as a former reporter on police corruption, was that it’s impossible to clean up something you don’t understand. At the height of the Black Lives Matter era he was running against a variety of left-leaning candidates all unlikely to win Staten Island or the Bronx and he struck me as the likely winner.

The charges against Adams, I think, were probably brought fairly. Rumors about his corruption circulated at the time of the election but most voters, me included, are prepared to overlook a bit of that. Since then it’s emerged that there likely was some accepting of illegal foreign contributions through straw donors, and the Manhattan prosecutors went for those. I don’t love straw donors. Likewise I’m not sure the case is horrendous. As I say, he whiffed from day one.

Since Donald Trump’s election, Adams has met with Trump and been to his Florida resort, Mar-A-Lago. Now Trump’s top people want the case dropped.

In her resignation letter Danielle Sassoon said the order from Mr Trump’s former Defense attorney, Emil Bove III, to drop the case meant she couldn’t do her duty to prosecute federal crimes “without fear or favor.”

Sassoon also alleged in her resignation letter that “the mayor’s lawyers had ‘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.’”

It’s a “startling accusation”, according to the story. And I agree. Essentially it implies that Mr. Adams urged the prosecutors to look the other way, regardless of whether or not he’s guilty.

The story doesn’t look good either for Adams or Trump. Ms. Sassoon, who is 38, hardly looks like a picture of corruption:

After her resignation, Mayor Adams signed an order to allow immigration and customs enforcement officers into the Rikera Island jail complex. That’s a “clear shift in the city’s sanctuary policies,” and means Adams is prepared to see people deported when he had previously agreed to protect them.

For me, the sad reality is that Eric Adams basically sucks, now. The next mayoral race looms and it’ll likely come down eventually to Adams versus Andrew Cuomo, the state’s disgraced former governor. Cuomo was ousted over legitimate sexual harassment concerns but given the current political picture—where as we know, the president is not only a convicted felon but was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming a lady in the changing rooms at Bergdorf Goodman—he tends to think that voters will prefer holding their nose and voting for him, than holding their nose and voting for his opponent. I would love it if a viable candidate emerged in the race that could get elected in the more conservative boroughs as well as in Bushwick. But I’m also a realist. And that really is what it takes to be able to read the newspapers these days, so that you don’t have to.

Matt Davis lives in New York with his wife and kid.