Republican President Donald Trump’s Justice Department (DOJ) has instructed Manhattan federal prosecutors to drop Mayor Eric Adams’ five-count corruption indictment, according to a DOJ memo.
In the memo, a copy of which The New York Times posted online Monday evening, the DOJ’s acting second-in-command Emil Bove said Adams’ case should be dismissed because of when Manhattan federal prosecutors brought the charges and “pre-trial publicity that risks impacting potential witnesses and the jury pool.”
Adams was indicted in September on charges including bribery and soliciting foreign campaign donations, to which he pleaded not guilty and was set to stand trial in April. He is accused of accepting luxury travel perks and illegal campaign donations from Turkish nationals in exchange for helping them open a Manhattan consulate building that did not pass city fire inspections. Prosecutors also allege that his campaign defrauded the city’s generous matching funds program.
Bove’s memo also contended it “cannot be ignored” that the charges came after Adams had spent months criticizing former President Joe Biden’s immigration policies — appearing to repeat Adams’ claim that the charges were political retribution for his broadsides agianst the prior administration. Adams has never presented any evidence to back his assertion and the federal case began in 2021, well before he ever criticized Biden’s handling of immigration.
Additionally, Bove said the charges were brought too close to the 2025 mayoral primary and could hinder Adams’ ability to implement Trump’s immigration agenda.
Bove said the charges should be dropped “without prejudice,” meaning DOJ could reopen the case.
Adams must agree to have the charges dismissed without prejudice, then the matter must be reviewed by interim US Attorney for the Sourthern District of New York Danielle Sassoon after the November 2025 general election, according to the memo.
Adams’ attorney, Alex Spiro, claimed in a statement that Trump’s DOJ “reevaluated the case and determined it should not go forward.”
“The facts of the case are clear: the mayor never used his official position for personal benefit,” Spiro said. “Nor did he have any role in violating campaign finance laws. Despite a lot of fanfare and sensational claims, ultimately there was no evidence presented that he broke any laws, ever. The witnesses that were promised never materialized…Now, thankfully, the mayor and New York can put this unfortunate and misguided prosecution behind them.”
However, Bove’s memo directly contradicts Spiro’s statement.
“The Justice Department has reached this conclusion without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based, which are issues on which we defer to the US Attorney’s Office at this time,” the memo reads.
The DOJ’s orders followed months of Adams refusing to criticize Trump in public, unlike most Democrats, and instead speaking positively about the president. Adams’ overtures to Trump came to a head last month when he traveled to Palm Beach to attend a private meeting with the then-incoming president and took a last-minute jaunt to Washington DC to attend Trump’s inauguration.
Those actions, along with Adams’ apparent willingness to comply with Trump’s immigration crackdown despite the city’s sanctuary laws, fueled widespread speculation that he was currying favor with the president in exchange for having the charges against him dropped.
The crowded field of opponents challenging Adams in the Democratic primary wasted no time making that exact argument on Monday night.
State Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn) said the DOJ’s move to drop Adams’ case shows that “justice is dead” in the United States.
“The decision by Trump’s Department of Justice to drop charges against Eric Adams should outrage every single New Yorker,” Myrie said in a statement. “We already know that Eric Adams has sacrificed the safety and sanctity of our schools and public hospitals to curry favor with this fascist Administration. How many more of our rights and freedoms did the Mayor give up to save his own skin?”
Another candidate, Queens state Sen. Jessica Ramos, charged that Adams is the “worst mayor in NYC history.”
“Donald Trump may think this buys him access to terrorize our communities, but New Yorkers always stand up for one another, no matter how many corrupt,” Ramos said in a post on X.
This is a developing story; check with amNY.com for further updates.