Judge Ends Eric Adams Case, but Sharply Criticizes Trump’s Justice Dept.

A judge on Wednesday dismissed corruption charges against Eric Adams, ending the first criminal case against a New York City mayor in modern history and underscoring how President Trump’s Justice Department is using prosecutorial power to advance his agenda.

The judge, Dale E. Ho of Federal District Court in Manhattan, refused to let the government retain the option of reinstating the case, as Mr. Trump’s Justice Department had sought.

The department had argued that the bribery and fraud charges should be dropped for three reasons: They were brought too close to the mayoral election; the U.S. attorney who brought the case had created “appearances of impropriety”; and, most importantly, the prosecution was hindering the mayor’s cooperation with Mr. Trump’s immigration plans.

Judge Ho roundly rejected all three arguments.

“Everything here smacks of a bargain: Dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions,” the judge wrote in his 78-page decision. He suggested that the arguments about impropriety and timing were misleading and insincere.

Even so, his decision to let the Justice Department abruptly end the case, which had originally been set for trial this month, underscored the remarkable power that Mr. Trump’s administration has to terminate prosecutions, regardless of rationale.

In his second term, President Trump has taken tight control over the department, eviscerating its public corruption efforts and turning its focus toward the administration’s signature issue: the immigration crackdown. The dismissal of the case against Mayor Adams — who had curried favor with Mr. Trump for months — epitomized the department’s new ethos, where politics and access take precedence over all else.