“It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment,&#…
File photo: Danielle Sassoon said in a letter Wednesday to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that prosecutors were prepared to seek a new indictment charging Adams with additional crimes. Sassoon resigned Thursday, announcing her decision in an email to staff.By Larry Neumeister, Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker | Associated Press
The dueling letters from officials in New York and Washington laid bare in starkly personal language the gravity of a simmering, behind-the-scenes dispute over the handling of one of the government’s most significant current public corruption cases. The outcomebetween the department’s headquarters and its most prestigious prosecutorial offices, but also risks reinforcing the perception that Trump’s administration will employ a transactional approach to law enforcement decisions.
Bove said in a memo Monday that the case should be dismissed so Adams could aid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and campaign for reelection free from facing criminal charges. The primary is four months away and Adams has multiple challengers. “It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment,” Sassoon wrote. She calling the purported offer “an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case.”“We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us,” Spiro said.
Sassoon, a former clerk for the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was not the prosecutor who brought the case against Adams last year. That was then-U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, who stepped down after Trump’s election victory in November. This is the second Justice Department tussle in five years between Washington and New York officials to result in a dramatic leadership turnover.
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