CNN legal analyst Elie Honig on Tuesday was floored by a Department of Justice memo released to justify dropping criminal charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.
During an interview with CNN's Kate Bolduan, Honig outlined just how unprecedented such apparent political interference is from the Department of Justice.
"This is a bizarre and extraordinary memo," he said. "I've really never seen anything like it in all my years of being at the Justice Department. And since then, what the memo says, essentially, this is the bosses at DOJ ordering the Southern District of New York to dismiss their indictment of Eric Adams."
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Honig then explained why he considered the contents of the memo itself were so shocking.
"The memo itself said this has nothing to do with the merits of the case, with the quality of the evidence, with anything Eric Adams is alleged to have done," he said. "Instead, they couch it.
"First of all, in these sort of broad political terms, they say, well, the prior U.S. attorney had bad motives when he indicted Eric Adams. They argue that it had something to do with trying to influence the election while providing zero support, zero evidence for that.
"And then the second excuse that DOJ gives is the mayor has to do his job as mayor, he has to focus on his job as mayor, he shouldn't be sort of sidetracked with such trifling matters as a federal indictment. But by that logic, no public official should ever be indicted for anything because they all have jobs to do, from a member of a city council all the way up to governors and the U.S. Senate. You can make the exact same argument. So this is a flagrantly political move. I think it's poorly disguised, and I think it's absolutely out of the ordinary."
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