U.S. Asks Judge to Drop Adams Case After Manhattan Prosecutor Quits

Federal prosecutors in Washington formally asked a judge on Friday to drop corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York Cityafter the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan resigned in the face of an order to carry out the request.

The prosecutors, Emil Bove III, Edward Sullivan and Antoinette T. Bacon, filed the request with Judge Dale E. Ho, who is overseeing the mayor’s case in Manhattan federal court, where Mr. Adams was indicted last year on five counts that included bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. Mr. Adams had pleaded not guilty and was scheduled for trial in April.

Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Bacon are officials with the Justice Department in Washington, where the case has been transferred. Mr. Bove is the acting second-in-command of the Justice Department.

Ordinarily it is the responsibility of the local U.S. attorney whose office prosecutes a case to move for its dismissal. But in Mr. Adams’s case, that prosecutor, Danielle R. Sassoon, 38, quit Thursday. Her stunning decision to resign from her position as top prosecutor of the Southern District of New York came after she told the attorney general that she would not obey an order that had no “valid basis.”

The original order to drop the charges against Mr. Adams was sent Monday to Ms. Sassoon by the department’s No. 2 official, Emil Bove III. Mr. Bove said that the request was not based on the strength of the evidence in the case or any legal theories, but rather on the idea that the charges would interfere with Mr. Adams’s ability to assist President Trump in his plan for mass deportations.

In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday, Ms. Sassoon characterized the order as a quid pro quo — dropping the charges in exchange for the mayor’s support of Mr. Trump’s political program.