Another federal prosecutor has resigned from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York rather than carry out the Justice Department's order to dismiss the charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, NBC News' Tom Winter reported on Thursday.
"When SDNY refused to drop the case, it was reassigned to the DOJ Public Integrity Section (PIN), three sources told NBC News," Winter reported. However, "The acting head of PIN also refused [to] dismiss the case and resigned."
The report comes as Emil Bove, the Justice Department official who gave the order to dismiss the case, attacked Danielle Sassoon, the conservative Republican lawyer President Donald Trump appointed as acting U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, when she resigned over the issue, accusing her of "insubordination."
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Adams was indicted last year on public corruption charges, with prosecutors alleging he accepted over $100,000 in luxury travel and hotel stays from individuals connected to the Turkish government, as he was trying to expedite approval for a new consulate office for Turkey in New York over the objections of the New York Fire Department.
Bove's order to dismiss the case claimed it was politically interfering with the upcoming New York mayoral election. He also said it would interfere with Adams' ability to assist Trump in immigration raids — something he has expressed more interest in doing than most Democratic mayors — although Bove denied in the letter that there was any quid pro quo arrangement connecting the dismissal of charges to cooperation with immigration policy.
