U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon of the Southern District of New York abruptly quit her post on Thursday, three days after being ordered to drop criminal charges against Mayor Eric Adams.
Sassoon’s resignation came in a two-sentence Feb. 13 letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, according to Reuters. Her tenure at the helm of the Manhattan-based federal prosecutor’s office (SDNY) lasted less than a month; President Trump had appointed her to the post on Jan. 21.
Her departure seemed to be directly related to a refusal to abide by a Feb. 10 order from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to drop the indictment against Adams, who had been charged last September with five criminal counts in an election fraud case dating back to 2021. Sassoon’s resignation letter, however, did not mention the Adams case as being the specific reason for her quitting the post, it was reported.
On Wednesday, Sassoon sent Bondi an eight-page letter explaining why she could not, “in good conscience,” abide by Bove’s order to dismiss the Adams case, adding that she “always considered it my obligation to pursue justice impartially, without favor to the wealthy or those who occupy important public office, or harsher treatment for the less powerful.”
She also noted that during a meeting with Bove, Adams’ counsel and herself on Jan. 30, Adams’ legal team “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.”
“Rather than be rewarded, Adams’s advocacy should be called out for what it is: an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case,” Sassoon told Bondi in her Feb. 12 letter.
She further said that Bove “admonished” a member of her team who took notes of the meeting. Sassoon further offered to resign if Bondi was “unwilling to meet or to reconsider the directive.”
The New York Times reported that upon accepting Sassoon’s resignation Thursday, Bove chided her for refusing to follow his order and further informed that other prosecutors who worked on the Adams case were being placed on administrative leave.
“This decision is based on your choice to continue pursuing a politically motivated prosecution despite an express instruction to dismiss the case,” Bove told Sassoon Thursday in his letter, which the Times published. He further accused Sassoon of “losing sight of her oath” to the Constitution and defying a “democratically-elected President.”
The Times further reported that two members who oversee the U.S. Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, Kevin Driscoll and John Keller, had also resigned after efforts were made to transfer the Adams case to that bureau.
Bove, in the Feb. 10 memo to Sassoon, said the decision to drop the case was due to concerns that the indictment against Adams had been brought by the Biden-led Justice Department as political retribution for the mayor’s criticism of President Biden’s handling of the migrant crisis; however, the indictment against Adams stemmed from an investigation that began in 2021 and was focused on Adams’ mayoral campaign.
Additionally, Bove’s memo noted that the impending trial against Adams would interfere with the mayor’s ability to cooperate with the Trump administration in its ongoing crackdown against undocumented people in America.
Bove said the case would be halted “without prejudice,” meaning that the Justice Department could resurrect it at any time—a decision many critics believe would be used by Trump to compel Adams to cooperate with his administration’s immigration crackdown and other efforts.
By law, however, Sassoon and the presiding judge in the case, Dale Ho, would have had to consent to the dismissal; as of Thursday, Reuters reported, the SDNY had yet to file a motion to dismiss the case.
The DOJ’s decision to drop the criminal indictment prompted both Adams and his attorney, Alex Spiro, to declare vindication.
Sassoon had been with the SDNY since 2016 and notably led the prosecution of convicted FTX fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried. Given the pending confirmation of former SEC Chair Jay Clayton, Trump’s initial pick for the post, her leadership of the office was expected to be temporary from the outset — though few expected it would last only weeks.
The indictment of Mayor Adams came as a result of a lengthy probe in which the city’s Department of Investigation cooperated with federal prosecutors.
On Thursday, DO Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber issued a statement noting that her agency “conducted its work politically, guided solely by the facts and the law.”
“The Justice Department’s memorandum makes clear that its order to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York to dismiss the criminal charges against Mayor Adams was unrelated to the strength of the evidence in the case,” Strauber said. “I thank our dedicated Inspectors General and their teams, and our trusted law enforcement partners in the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York with whom we worked closely on this investigation, for their work and their commitment to our mission to provide independent oversight and to protect City government from fraud and abuse.”
Updated on Feb. 13 at 5:02 p.m.
