'Flagrantly dishonest': NY Times aims furious editorial at Trump 'lackey'

The New York Times editorial board called out the "coercive tactics" Donald Trump's administration has been using to reward loyalists and punish enemies.

The Department of Justice extended a deal to New York City Mayor Eric Adams last week that would dismiss corruption charges against him in exchange for aiding the administration's crackdown on immigration, setting off a confrontation between Emil Bove, Trump's personal lawyer and acting deputy attorney general, and Manhattan’s interim U.S. attorney Danielle Sassoon and her colleagues.

"What is so alarming about the Trump Justice Department’s actions is that the nation’s top law enforcement officials are bent not just on turning an intentionally blind eye to their peers alleging illegal actions and exploiting the misconduct of a desperate lackey like Mr. Adams for their own purposes, but on corrupting the prosecutors and civil servants in the department itself," the editorial board wrote.

"That much was clear in letters written by Ms. Sassoon and her Southern District colleague Hagan Scotten outlining the reasons they would not obey the flagrantly dishonest and untenable order to drop the Adams charges from Mr. Bove, the acting deputy attorney general who had served (and lost) as Mr. Trump’s criminal lawyer in his hush-money case."

"The resignation letters by the two prosecutors, both with conservative backgrounds, are compelling declarations of why demands like these from the administration are serious violations of democratic practice, tradition, precedent, decency and legality," the board added.

Sassoon's resignation letter describes how the mayor's attorneys “repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo” to federal prosecutors, and Adams made clear he was willing to hold up his end of the bargain by making a joint appearance on Fox News with Mr. Trump’s so-called border czar Thomas Homan – who told viewers he would ensure the mayor complied with the terms of the deal.

The Times lauded that resignations as "refusing to carry out Trump's flagrantly dishonest orders."

"All of this leaves New York City with a mayor plainly unfit for office, whose credible accusations of corruption — let’s remember that five aides or associates of Mr. Adams have been indicted as well, and seven others have left office under pressure — are now joined by the strongest possible disincentive to cross the president in any way.

"If he is loyal to the great city he was elected to lead, he will resign," the board wrote. "Many leading New York political leaders have already demanded that he do so. Some of them have also demanded that Gov. Kathy Hochul take immediate action to use her legal authority to fire him if he continues to refuse to do so."

Bove has threatened investigations against the prosecutors who defied his order to dismiss the case against Adams, but the editorial board said that could backfire because those individuals carried impressive conservative credentials.

"In his first term, Mr. Trump was often restrained from his most dangerous impulses by people who knew better," the board wrote. "He has taken great care this time to exclude such people from his entourage, leaving it to brave and truly patriotic civil servants to stand up to him,like the seven Justice Department lawyers who resigned rather than carry out the order to drop the Adams indictment."