A former federal prosecutor on Wednesday lambasted Judge Dale Ho, who presided over a hearing to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Adams was charged last year with bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign contributions. Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove sought to drop the charges, alleging a political weaponization of the department. This prompted seven resignations from the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York, and the main Justice, along with several other career lawyers refusing to sign the motion.
On their way out the door, a few top prosecutors said they felt the charges were being dropped because Adams made a backroom deal with President Donald Trump, possibly to cooperate with Trump's immigration policies. The possible quid pro quo prompted several legal experts to caution that Bove could be in legal trouble of his own.
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While in court on Wednesday, Bove sat alone at the table before Judge Ho, making a number of claims that shocked the legal experts.
Kristy Greenberg, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District, told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace that all of the alarm bells being rung by career prosecutors were silenced in court on Wednesday.
Bove "got up and said, this is just like any other motion to dismiss," said Greenberg. "And he continued to say, this is just so ordinary. This is like any other case where somebody is exercising their prosecutorial discretion. And he made it seem like everything was normal. And the problem with that was it so clearly wasn't."
She said Bove's sitting alone at the table ended up being the elephant in the room because if the judge had addressed that fact, the drama that unfolded in the days prior would have been discussed.
"The judge never bothered to ask about it," she complained about Ho. "The judge didn't ask the tough questions that I think everybody in that room wanted him to ask. He frankly seemed very scared and intimidated to be there. He's a new judge, and I understand that this is a very unusual situation, but there are questions that really need to be asked here."
Greenberg highlighted Bove's comments that even if there was a quid pro quo, it wouldn't matter in the motion to dismiss.
"Like, what? How do you not follow up? Wait a minute. What are you talking about?" asked Greenberg. "I mean that it seemed to me that you would want to ask a follow-up there."
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She also cited Bove as "saying really incredible things," such as the claim in the Adams case, "It's not just an appearance of impropriety; there was an abuse of the prosecutorial process by (previous prosecutor) Damian Williams."
"How so?" she wanted the judge to ask.
"There was not really any follow-up or pushback. In fact, the judge made multiple attempts to say, you know, he apologized for questions that he asked in case they may, you know — 'Well, I'm sorry if these may seem elementary to you in terms of how I'm asking. I'm just trying to understand,'" she cited.
She said that tough questions should have been asked, but they weren't. At one point, she said, Bove argued Mayor Adams couldn't do his job because of this case.
"Okay, so we're never going to have public corruption cases again?" Greenberg asked.
Former Justice Department lawyer Andrew Weissmann said he was shocked by some of the things Bove was willing to say in a court of law.
"To essentially say, you know what? A quid pro quo is fine. First of all, it's not normal at all," Weissmann said. "It is — that is just not something that happens. Talk about weaponizing."
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After the commercial break, Greenberg said it's clear Adams is fully aware of "what the game is" and is not afraid of any repercussions.
"It just seemed like there was such a smugness that they knew that they could get away with it, that they could do whatever they wanted," she added.
Wallace said that the U.S. is not without checks and balances, it's that Republicans have opted out of them. They have the power, she said, to call Bove into the Judiciary Committee to answer for what is unfolding, but they won't do it.
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