A federal judge on Friday hit the brakes on dismissing Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption case.
In a Friday ruling, Federal District Judge Dale Ho canceled Adams’ April 21 trial without tossing the case out in its entirety. Instead of granting the motion to dismiss the charges sought by President Trump’s Justice Department, Ho appointed an independent attorney—Paul Clement of the law firm Clement & Murphy PLLC—to argue against the motion.
“To assist with its decision-making via an adversarial process, the Court exercises its inherent authority to appoint Paul Clement of Clement & Murphy PLLC as amicus curiae to present arguments on the Government’s Motion to Dismiss,” Ho wrote.
During an interview on Pix11, Adams declined to weigh-in on his case not being dismissed.
“I have a competent legal team, they just got it, they’re going to look over it and make the next steps that are necessary,” Adams said.
Ho’s decision comes on the heels of both acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove and Adams’ lawyer Alex Spiro arguing for Ho to dismiss the case during a Wednesday hearing. The DOJ is pushing for dropping the case without prejudice, meaning it can revive the charges at any time, a provision that has sparked widespread fear that Adams will act as a pawn of Trump’s administration.
Those fears were exacerbated by former acting US Attorney Danielle Sassoon last week, who alleged in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi that Adams had engaged in a quid pro quo with Trump’s DOJ. She said that Spiro offered Adams’ cooperation with implementing Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants in exchange for getting his charges dropped.
Adams swore under oath during the Wednesday hearing that he did not engage in a quid pro quo.
The absence of an immediate dismissal means Adams will continue to have the case hanging over his head as the Democratic mayoral primary kicks into full gear in the coming weeks. It also puts more pressure on other top New York officials who said they were waiting on the judge’s decision on dropping the charges before pressing for Adams to resign or be removed from office.
The judge charged all parties in the case with addressing the legal standards undergirding the motion to dismiss, whether the court can consider materials outside of the motion, if the charges should be dropped without prejudice, and what should happen to the charges if the motion is denied.
Ho also set a new legal schedule, requesting briefs by March 7, and hearing oral arguments on March 14.
The judge said an independent attorney arguing for the merits of the case, which was brought by Manhattan federal prosecutors under former President Biden’s DOJ, is necessary because Trump’s Justice Department and Adams’ attorneys are in agreement about dropping it.
“Because the Government agrees with petitioner on the merits of the constitutional question, we appointed Paul Clement to defend the judgment below as amicus curiae. He has ably discharged his responsibilities,” the filing reads.
Clement served as the US Solicitor General under former President George W. Bush, between the years 2005 and 2008. He has argued 100 cases before the US Supreme Court, more than any other lawyer since the year 2,000, according to a bio on his firm’s website.
But Spiro, in a letter following Ho’s ruling, argued that he and the DOJ were not on the same page. He said that he has argued to dismiss the case based on the “evidence and the law,” whereas the DOJ wants it dropped for reasons unrelated to the evidence.
Spiro also contended that Manhattan federal prosectuors brought a weak case under Biden’s DOJ and now Trump’s Justice Department wants to correct that error. He also said that Bondi recently described the case as “incredibly weak.”
“Every day prosecutors exercise their judgment when determining what cases to bring. In this case, there was a lapse in that judgment,” Spiro wrote. “Prosecutors failed to make the correct ex ante determination that the charged crimes are unsupported by evidence, and they went ahead and indicted Mayor Adams despite the weakness of their claims. The Department of Justice has realized its error and now seeks to correct the prior Administration’s mistake.”
The decision also comes on the heels of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s move to introduce legislation that would place legal guardrails on the mayor’s authority in a bid to dilute Trump’s possible influence over his administration. Adams, for his part, has refused mounting calls to step down, saying he’s “going nowhere.”
However, Hochul decided against using her executive powers to remove Adams from office “at this time.”
