How the Justice Dept. Helped Sink Its Own Case Against Eric Adams – The New York Times

President Trump had just taken office when lawyers for Mayor Eric Adams of New York went to the White House with an extraordinary request: They formally asked in a letter that the new president pardon the mayor in a federal corruption case that had yet to go to trial.

Just a week later, one of Mr. Trump s top political appointees at the Justice Department called Mr. Adams s lawyer, saying he wanted to talk about potentially dismissing the case.

What followed was a rapid series of exchanges between the lawyers and Mr. Trump s administration that exploded this week into a confrontation between top Justice Department officials in Washington and New York prosecutors.

On Monday, the acting No. 2 official at the Justice Department sent a memo ordering prosecutors to dismiss the charges against the mayor. By Thursday, the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Danielle Sassoon, had resigned in protest over what she described as a quid pro quo between the Trump administration and the mayor of New York City. Five officials overseeing the Justice Department s public integrity unit in Washington stepped down soon after.

The conflagration originated in the back-and-forth between Mr. Adams s lawyers, Alex Spiro and William A. Burck, and the Justice Department official, Emil Bove III, exchanges which have not been previously reported.

via www.nytimes.com