Recent Resignations Recall Nixon-Era Saturday Night Massacre

At least six Justice Department officials decided this week to quit rather than obey an order to drop the corruption case against New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams. The sheer number of resignations in such a short period of time has reminded legal experts of the Saturday Night Massacre.

It was Oct. 20, 1973, and President Richard M. Nixon was seeking to fire Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor leading the Watergate investigation. Mr. Nixon and his subordinates had sought to cover up a connection between the White House and a botched burglary attempt at the Washington office building that gave the scandal its name.

But the attorney general at the time, Elliot L. Richardson, refused to fire Mr. Cox and chose to resign instead. The deputy attorney general, William D. Ruckelshaus, also refused to do so and was fired. The order was eventually carried out by Robert Bork, the solicitor general. (Mr. Nixon was impeached, and eventually resigned.)

What happened this week in the Adams case was the Saturday Night Massacre “on steroids,” Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University, wrote on Thursday.

In both instances, there was a “clash between the president’s personal preferences and what Justice Department lawyers think the rule of law requires,” Mr. Vladeck said in an interview on Friday.

Danielle R. Sassoon, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, chose to offer her resignation on Thursday instead of dropping the Adams case. The lead prosecutor on the investigation, Hagan Scotten, has also announced his resignation.