The Justice Department on Monday ordered federal prosecutors to drop the corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York, a remarkable incursion into a continuing criminal case that raises questions about the fair administration of justice during President Trump’s second term.
The order was sent in a letter from the department’s acting No. 2 official, Emil Bove III, to Manhattan prosecutors who brought the charges against the mayor last year.
Mr. Bove justified the decision to ask for the dismissal by saying that the mayor’s indictment had limited Mr. Adams’s ability to cooperate in President Trump’s immigration crackdown. He also suggested that the indictment, which was handed up in September, threatened to interfere with the June 2025 mayoral primary, despite the nine-month interval between the two events.
Mr. Bove explicitly said that the Justice Department had made its decision without assessing the strength of the evidence against Mr. Adams or the legal theories undergirding the case. Instead, his letter criticized the U.S. attorney who brought it and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. He offered expressly political arguments for dropping the charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, soliciting illegal foreign campaign contributions from foreign nationals and bribery, asserting the urgency of Mr. Trump’s immigration objectives.
It will now fall to the acting head of the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, Danielle R. Sassoon, whether to heed Mr. Bove’s order to dismiss the charges “as soon as is practicable” by filing a motion with the judge. A spokesman for Ms. Sassoon’s office declined to comment.
The letter was a remarkable intervention in a high-profile public corruption prosecution, one that cast the independence of federal prosecutors into doubt given the way Mr. Adams has curried favor with Mr. Trump. Mr. Bove directed that the charges against Mr. Adams be dismissed without prejudice, suggesting that the case could be revived if merited — or if it pleased the president….