The New York City mayor cultivated a close relationship with President Trump, who said they had both been persecuted.
The New York City mayor cultivated a close relationship with President Trump, who said they had both been persecuted.
Live Updates: Justice Dept. Tells Prosecutors to Drop Federal Corruption Case Against Eric Adams
The dismissal of the charges would, for now, end the case against New York City’s mayor, and raise questions about the administration of justice under President Trump.
The Justice Department on Monday told federal prosecutors in Manhattan to drop corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York. It claimed his indictment last fall came too close to the 2025 Democratic mayoral primary and limited his ability to cooperate with President Trump’s immigration crackdown.
The move came after Mr. Adams, a Democrat running for re-election, had made repeated overtures to Mr. Trump. Mr. Adams met with Mr. Trump near his Mar-a-Lago estate last month in an unusual display of political — and perhaps personal — outreach, then attended his inauguration and later told reporters that he would not publicly criticize the president. The request to drop the charges raises urgent questions about the administration of justice during Mr. Trump’s second term and the independence of federal prosecutors.
In a memo sent to prosecutors Monday evening, the Justice Department’s acting No. 2 official, Emil Bove, accused the former Manhattan federal prosecutor who charged Mr. Adams of having done so for political reasons, though he offered no evidence.
Mr. Bove wrote that the department wanted to drop the charges because the case had been inappropriately timed —an unusual reason to seek dismissal — not because of questions about the merits of the case or about the mayor’s guilt or innocence. Mr. Bove, a former prosecutor in the same office that is prosecuting the mayor, said there was to be “no further targeting of Mayor Adams or additional investigative steps” until after the November mayoral election, when the case would be re-evaluated.
The bid to drop the charges marks an extraordinary reversal. Just weeks ago, the same Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office, under the interim U.S. attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon, said it had uncovered “additional criminal conduct” by Mr. Adams. It was unclear how Ms. Sassoon would respond to Monday’s request.
Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Mr. Adams, said in a statement: “I said from the outset, the mayor is innocent — and he would prevail. Today he has.”
Here’s what else to know:
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Immigration crackdown: Mr. Bove argued that the case had “unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior Administration.” Mr. Adams has been adamant that the indictment has not been a distraction.
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Security clearance: Mr. Bove also ordered the government to restore security clearances stripped from Mr. Adams following his indictment in September.
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The case: Mr. Adams had been indicted on five counts of bribery conspiracy, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. The case accuses him of helping fast-track the approval of a new Turkish Consulate in Manhattan despite safety concerns, in exchange for unlawful donations and free and heavily discounted luxury travel. Prosecutors sought records relating to his dealings with five other countries and suggested that the case could have expanded.
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Trump’s involvement: Mr. Trump had said that he would consider pardoning Mr. Adams because the case against him was politically motivated. That echoed language the president used about his own criminal conviction in New York last year, in state court, on 34 felony counts.
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Judicial independence: The intervention by Mr. Trump’s Justice Department has rattled veteran prosecutors in the Manhattan office, which has traditionally been known for its relative independence from Washington. The dismissal request seems primed to raise questions about the office’s ability to pursue criminal cases without political interference.
Bennett Capers, a former prosecutor for the Southern District of New York and a professor at the Fordham University School of Law, said “the real harm” of the Justice Department’s order “is to the idea that the rule of law applies to everyone and is free from politics. The real harm is to all of us.”
Daniel C. Richman, a Columbia Law School professor and a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan, said the order was a “chance for the Trump administration to make some cheap and unsupported shots about politicization,” even while leaving room for the new U.S. attorney to seek an indictment once confirmed.
“It sends its own message about this administration’s weaponization of the criminal process: any official actually prosecuted for corruption has simply not groveled sufficiently to Trump,” he said.
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Brad Lander, New York City’s comptroller and one of Adams’s opponents in the Democratic mayoral primary, said in a statement that Adams’s instructions to senior staff not to criticize President Trump was directly tied to the Justice Department’s request to drop the charges against the mayor. “Instead of standing up for New Yorkers, Adams is standing up for precisely one person,” Lander said. “New Yorkers deserve better.”
Bove continues the pattern of many of the memos he has written during his tumultuous tenure, suggesting his targets of generally inappropriate conduct without providing evidence of unethical or unprofessional behavior. In the Adams case, his target is Damian Williams, the former U.S. attorney in Manhattan, whom he accused of creating “appearances of impropriety” by bringing charges nine months before the Democratic mayoral primary.
William Rashbaum
The reporting tonight on Emil Bove’s memo could create something of an awkward situation. It is currently unclear whether the Department of Justice in Washington had already alerted the judge presiding over the case, Dale E. Ho, that it planned to direct the Southern District prosecutors to ask him to dismiss the case. Should the Southern District follow Bove’s direction, and file what is known as a nolle prosequi, a Latin phrase that means “not to wish to prosecute,” Judge Ho must still sign off on it. If he had not been notified before the reports on the move became public, he might well react poorly — particularly since defense lawyers in the case have repeatedly complained about what they have characterized without evidence as government leaks.
The memo that Emil Bove, a top Trump Justice Department official, wrote ordering prosecutors to drop the case against Adams took an unusual — and seemingly political — left turn on its second page, somehow relating the local corruption case in New York to the 2022 prison release of a Russian arms trafficker.
The arms trafficker, Viktor Bout, known as “the merchant of death,” was released in a prisoner swap made by the Biden administration for Brittney Griner, the American basketball star who had been imprisoned on drug charges in Russia.
The connection between Bout and the decision to drop Adams’s case seems somewhat tenuous. According to Bove’s memo, the Adams prosecution was impinging on the mayor’s ability to cooperate with Trump’s immigration crackdown. That crackdown, Bove wrote, “is every bit as important — if not more so — as the objectives that the prior Administration pursued by releasing violent criminals such as Viktor Bout, the ‘Merchant of Death.’”
In a footnote, Bove cited reports that Bout had begun selling arms again — but he did not reference that he had been released in exchange for Griner, the All-Star basketball center and Olympic gold medalist who the U.S. considered to have been wrongfully detained after customs officials in Moscow found two vape cartridges with hashish oil in her luggage.
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Emma Fitzsimmons
Alex Spiro, Adams’s defense attorney, also represents Elon Musk, the billionaire adviser to Trump. Adams has publicly praised Musk in recent weeks, even as other Democrats in his party have criticized Musk’s efforts to slash government spending.
The letter does not offer a deadline by which the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan will have to file a motion with the court seeking a dismissal of the charges. And as federal prosecutors in New York City contend with the Justice Department directive, it is unclear what the timing of any such filing would be.
After Adams was first charged in the fall, Gov. Kathy Hochul faced pressure to use her power, enumerated in New York City’s charter, to remove him. She held back, speaking with Adams multiple times and pressuring him to cut ties with several aides who were also enmeshed in scandal, which he did. They have continued to work together and he attended her State of the State address.
The calculation now is a bit different, with Trump in office. Hochul is tangling with him on several fronts, including over his stated desire to kill congestion pricing. Any move against Adams could end up affecting those delicate conversations.
William Rashbaum
It likely will take time for the broader impact of the decision to seek a dismissal to become clear. But several prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges said it would likely prompt many other defendants to petition the Justice Department in Washington, asking officials there to intervene and dismiss their cases.
William Rashbaum
Several of the same lawyers and judges said it also could have a chilling effect on the willingness of witnesses to cooperate with prosecutors and provide information in cases where influential defendants might seek redress from Trump’s Justice Department in Washington.
William Rashbaum
In fact, in Adams’s case, there are several people who prosecutors say conspired with the mayor and who have either pleaded guilty, were expected to do so, or entered into agreements with the government. The fate of their cases, and, at least in the case of one Turkish businessman, his conviction, remain unclear.
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The man who ordered this move is Emil Bove, a federal prosecutor-turned Trump defense lawyer, who has quickly emerged as the administration’s enforcer inside the Justice Department — overseeing threats to localities who block immigration sweeps, forcing out respected career prosecutors and demanding the F.B.I.’s interim leadership turn over a list of agents who worked on Capitol rioter cases.
Scott Stringer, the former comptroller challenging Adams in the Democratic primary for mayor, said, “The only New Yorker breathing a sigh of relief tonight is Eric Adams. The rest of us are facing unaffordable housing and childcare costs and rising crime and disorder. But thankfully, New Yorkers — not the president — get to decide who is mayor next year.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Investigation, the city’s chief watchdog agency, which collaborated with the F.B.I. in the corruption investigation of Adams, declined to comment on Monday night about the Justice Department ordering that the case be dropped.
Emma Fitzsimmons
Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Adams, said in a statement:“As I said from the outset, the mayor is innocent — and he would prevail. Today he has. The Department of Justice has reevaluated this case and determined it should not go forward.”
Emma Fitzsimmons
Spiro said in a statement that there was good reason for the charges to be dropped: “The facts of the case are clear: the mayor never used his official position for personal benefit. Nor did he have any role in violating campaign finance laws.” He added: “Now, thankfully, the mayor and New York can put this unfortunate and misguided prosecution behind them.”
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This is a big moment. The decision to order the dismissal of the charges against Adams, without disputing their grounding in evidence or the law, sends a blunt message: The Trump Justice Department is placing new restrictions on public corruption investigations — and basing its decisions on non-prosecutorial criteria, such a politician’s role in enforcing immigration policy.
Emma Fitzsimmons
Zellnor Myrie, a state senator from Brooklyn who is running for mayor against Eric Adams, said: “If there was any doubt left, today’s news makes it clear that justice is dead in America. The decision by Trump’s Department of Justice to drop charges against Eric Adams should outrage every single New Yorker.”
Emma Fitzsimmons
The letter says that “it cannot be ignored that Mayor Adams criticized the prior administration’s immigration policies before the charges were filed.” Adams said in September 2023 that an influx of 200,000 migrants would “destroy New York City.” The mayor has claimed, without evidence, that his criticism of the Biden administration prompted the indictment a year later.
The letter directs the acting attorney general for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, to “dismiss the pending charges.” But Sassoon cannot dismiss them herself; she must ask a judge to do so. And before that can happen, she must decide whether or not she is willing to carry out Emil Bove’s directive. All eyes will now turn to the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan, known for decades for its independence from Washington.
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William Rashbaum
The letter also directs Manhattan prosecutors to pause their investigation, saying: “There shall be no further targeting of Mayor Adams or additional investigative steps prior to that review, and you are further directed to take all steps within your power to cause Mayor Adams’s security clearances to be restored.” But what the letter does not say is that Trump himself has the authority to to unilaterally reinstate the clearance, regardless of the indictment.
William Rashbaum
Emil Bove’s letter says unequivocally that the case “has unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior administration.” But that starkly contradicts Mr. Adams’s repeated and emphatic statements that the indictment has not in any way interfered with his ability to do his job. In fact, thephrase “No distraction, stay focused and grind” has become something of a mantra for the mayor.
Jeff Mays
The Rev. Al Sharpton, a close ally of Mayor Eric Adams, said the dismissal would be difficult for the mayor to explain to his political base of supporters. “I’m not anti-Adams, but I’m anti-Trump, and a lot of people in the Black community will have the same feelings,” Sharpton said.
Jeff Mays
Sharpton said he would convene a gathering of Black political and civic leaders to discuss the impact that the dismissal of Mayor Eric Adams’s criminal charges could have on the city and the mayor’s race.
With the criminal case against Mayor Eric Adams now imperiled, his chances of re-election this year certainly seems poised to receive a boost.
But whether it would be enough to overcome his flagging poll numbers — recent surveys suggested that he was favored by less than 10 percent of respondents — was far less certain.
The fact that a potential dismissal would come at the hands of President Trump, who is wildly unpopular among New York City Democrats, may also diminish some of the benefits of no longer facing a five-count federal indictment.
Mr. Adams’s relentless currying of favor with Mr. Trump, both before his re-election and after, has given ample ammunition to the mayor’s challengers, who have argued that Mr. Adams put his own interests ahead of the city’s.
Still, with the Justice Department pressuring federal prosecutors in Manhattan to drop the indictment against the mayor, just weeks after they said they had uncovered “additional criminal conduct” by him, Mr. Adams may be freed from the prospect of having to sit through a heavily publicized April trial, only two months before the primary.
It was also unclear whether the request to drop Mr. Adams’s case might affect whether former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo enters the mayor’s race. Mr. Cuomo, who regularly leads mayoral polls even though he has not declared his candidacy, has typically drawn strong support from Black voters, placing him in direct competition with Mr. Adams.
More than a half-dozen candidates have entered the race. They include Brad Lander, the city comptroller; State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani; State Senator Zellnor Myrie; State Senator Jessica Ramos; and Scott Stringer, the former city comptroller. All are considered to the left of Mr. Adams.
Two other candidates are running as moderates: Jim Walden, a lawyer who is suing to run on the Independence Party ballot line, and Whitney Tilson, a former hedge fund executive.
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Emma Fitzsimmons
The New York City mayoral race this year has been unusually volatile, and Adams has insisted that he’s running for a second term and will not resign. At least eight candidates are running against him in a primary, and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is considering entering the race after leading in polls.
The criminal indictment unveiled last September against Mayor Eric Adams of New York City — which the Trump administrationhas now requested be dropped — accused him of abusing his office to obtain free and discounted travel and illegal foreign campaign contributions for himself.
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, then led by U.S. attorney Damian Williams, charged Mr. Adams in a five-count indictment with conspiracy, wire fraud, soliciting illegal foreign campaign contributions from foreign nationals, and bribery. The indictment was the first against a sitting mayor in modern New York City history.
Mr. Adams pleaded not guilty and said he had done nothing wrong. He claimed the case had been brought because as mayor he criticized the Biden administration for its handling of the migrant crisis.
The Southern District prosecution team responded that the investigation had begun long before that, saying in a recent court filing that Mr. Adams had made “shifting attempts to suggest that he was indicted for any reason other than his crimes.”
Over 57 pages, the indictment described a scheme that prosecutors said dated to 2014, when Mr. Adams became Brooklyn borough president. They accused him of currying favor with Turkish officials and wealthy foreign businesspeople while accepting at least $123,000 in flight upgrades and airline tickets.
Mr. Adams flew to France, China, Sri Lanka, China and elsewhere on Turkish Airlines, which is controlled by the Turkish government, without reporting the benefits as gifts on city disclosure forms, according to the indictment. He was accused of continuing the scheme after taking office as mayor in 2022.
In exchange, prosecutors said, Mr. Adams pressured the New York City Fire Department to speed the approval of a new 36-story Turkish consulate in Midtown Manhattan despite safety concerns ahead of a visit by the Turkish president in late 2021. Mr. Adams said he had only tried to help a constituent in that episode, the basis of the federal bribery charge.
And through “straw donors,” Mr. Adams also received foreign contributions from wealthy foreign businesspeople who were not legally permitted to give to his campaign, the indictment charged. By soliciting those illegal donations, Mr. Adams fraudulently obtained millions of dollars in public matching funds for his campaign, prosecutors said.
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The Justice Department on Monday told federal prosecutors in Manhattan to drop the corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York, claiming his indictment last fall came too near the 2025 mayoral primary and had limited his ability to cooperate in President Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“You are directed” to “dismiss” the charges, Emil Bove, the Justice Department’s acting No. 2 official, wrote in a letter to prosecutors obtained by The New York Times.
Mr. Bove also ordered the government to restore security clearances stripped from Mr. Adams following his indictment in September and wrote that there must be “no further targeting of Mayor Adams or additional investigative steps” until after the election, when the case would be re-examined.
The remarkable intervention by a Trump political appointee in a public corruption prosecution involving an official who has been in close communication with the president throws into uncertainty the future of the case against the mayor.
It also raises urgent questions about the administration of justice during Mr. Trump’s second term and casts the independence of federal prosecutors into doubt.
It is not clear how Danielle R. Sassoon, the interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan, will respond to the order to drop the case. A spokesman for Ms. Sassoon’s office declined to comment.
Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Mayor Adams, said in a statement: “I said from the outset, the mayor is innocent — and he would prevail. Today he has.”
“Despite a lot of fanfare and sensational claims, ultimately there was no evidence presented that he broke any laws, ever,” Mr. Spiro said, adding, “Now, thankfully, the mayor and New York can put this unfortunate and misguided prosecution behind them.”
Any motion to dismiss charges must be filed in court and reviewed by the judge overseeing the case.
Mr. Bove accused the former U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Damian Williams, who oversaw the investigation, of creating “appearances of impropriety” that threatened the integrity of the investigation by bringing the charges for political gain, according to the memo.
He provided no evidence for that accusation, but said that the charges were part of what he described as the Biden administration’s broader pattern of weaponizing the Justice Department for partisan purposes.
In his memo, Mr. Bove also said the case had been damaged by “recent public actions” by Mr. Williams, an apparent reference to an opinion article the former prosecutor wrote last month in which he said that the city was “being led with a broken ethical compass.”
Lawyers for Mr. Adams had argued to the judge in the case that Mr. Williams’s article, which did not name Mr. Adams, would prejudice the jury pool and was evidence that Mr. Williams had been acting to boost his own career.
Mr. Bove, a former prosecutor in the same office that is prosecuting the mayor, said the request to dismiss the charges was not based on an assessment of the merits of the case or Mr. Adams’s guilt or innocence.
“The Justice Department has reached this conclusion without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based,” he wrote. Instead, he said that the case had been inappropriately timed, and that the indictment would be re-evaluated after this year’s mayoral election.
Seeking the dismissal of a criminal case without considering the evidence and the law underlying the prosecution is unusual.
Mr. Bove also argued that the case had “unduly restricted Mayor Adams’s ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior administration.”
Mr. Bove said that the removal of Mr. Adams’s security clearance, a result of the indictment, had impeded his capacity to consult with Trump administration officials on carrying out immigration enforcement in the nation’s largest city.
Mr. Adams’s critics have accused him of cozying up to Mr. Trump in hopes of having his charges dismissed, and have said he might agree to greater cooperation on immigration as part of a mutually beneficial thaw with the Republican president.
The mayor has been adamant that the indictment has not distracted him from his duties to the people of New York. He routinely uses media availabilities and news releases to trumpet declines in crime and the declining population in the city’s migrant shelters.
“I can do my job. My legal team is going to handle the case,” the mayor said in December on Bloomberg TV’s “The Close.” He added: “People said it was going to be a distraction. I’m moving forward and I’m going to continue to deliver for the people of the City of New York.”
The Justice Department has generally been reluctant to bring charges against elected officials close to any relevant elections, but Mr. Adams’s indictment came in September, nine months before the June primary and more than a year before the general election.
Mr. Adams, a Democrat, met with Mr. Trump near his Mar-a-Lago estate last month in an unusual display of political, and perhaps personal, outreach. Days later, he attended Mr. Trump’s inauguration in Washington. Mr. Adams has said that he would not publicly criticize Mr. Trump even as many other Democrats have assailed the president’s agenda and his calls for mass deportations.
For his part, Mr. Trump has said that he would consider pardoning Mr. Adams, and characterized the mayor as the victim of politics. The president has likewise claimed, without providing evidence, that he was politically persecuted by the federal and state prosecutors who brought four indictments against him.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have said the investigation began in 2021, three years before Mr. Adams was charged, and well before the recent influx of migrants into New York City. Just weeks ago, the same prosecutor’s office said it had uncovered “additional criminal conduct” by Mr. Adams.
The Justice Department’s request will most likely be met with swift condemnation by Mr. Adams’s critics and political opponents, who are almost sure to claim that the mayor escaped accountability because of the good graces of Mr. Trump, and that he prioritized his own interests over the city’s.
In the indictment in September, prosecutors accused Mr. Adams of accepting luxury travel and illegal foreign campaign contributions in exchange for abusing his office, including by speeding the approval of a new Turkish Consulate in Manhattan despite safety concerns. Mr. Adams pleaded not guilty.
If prosecutors in Manhattan do move forward with a motion to drop the case, the judge overseeing it, Dale E. Ho of Federal District Court in Manhattan, may question the decision. But under legal precedent, he has limited power to refuse the request.