The Trump administration’s Department of Justice on Monday took the highly unusual step of ordering Manhattan federal prosecutors to dismiss the pending corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove contended that the case was unfairly brought too close to the city’s primary election in June and had hampered Adams’ ability to devote “full attention and resources” to addressing illegal immigration, a top priority for President Donald Trump.
A memo from Bove directed Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon to dismiss the charges “as soon as practicable,” but specifically states that this is to be done “without prejudice,” a caveat that means the office is not barred from reopening the case.
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The memo also states that Adams would have to agree in writing to that condition, which means if he does not, the case would continue apace.
Bove, who served as one of Trump’s defense attorneys in his Manhattan criminal trial, stated that after the city’s general election in November, the dismissal was to be subject to a review by the confirmed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Trump has nominated ex-Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton for that position but he has not yet been confirmed by the Senate.
In September, Adams was indicted on one count of bribery and four counts of campaign finance fraud, for allegedly giving favorable treatment to campaign donors connected to the Turkish government in return for travel upgrades, free hotel stays and other perks worth more than $120,000. In exchange he allegedly solicited and accepted illegal straw donations, including some from foreign sources.
The indictment resulted from three years of investigation that accumulated thousands of pages of campaign finance records, emails by city inspectors and text messages between Adams and his aides that prosecutors say documented an orchestrated effort to obtain illegal donations in exchange for favors. Some of those donations were used to obtain public matching funds from the New York City Campaign Finance Board as the campaign obtained more than $10 million in public dollars in all.
A federal judge had previously rejected Adams’ lawyer’s motion to dismiss the bribery count, stating that it was a matter for a jury to decide.
The possible dismissal now is a huge gift to Adams. He is actively running for re-election and can now claim he was unjustly charged with corruption.
The dismissal could also affect his ability to obtain matching funds. The New York City Campaign Finance Board cited the indictment in refusing his 2025 campaign’s request for $4 million in public funds, and he could now argue their refusal is no longer valid.
Late Monday, Adams’ lawyer, Alex Spiro, heralded the Trump Justice Department’s decision as total vindication.
“As I said from the outset, the mayor is innocent — and he would prevail. Today he has. The Department of Justice has reevaluated this case and determined it should not go forward. There is good reason for that,” Spiro said.
“The facts of the case are clear: the mayor never used his official position for personal benefit. Nor did he have any role in violating campaign finance laws. Despite a lot of fanfare and sensational claims, ultimately there was no evidence presented that he broke any laws, ever. The witnesses that were promised never materialized. The additional charges that were threatened never came. Now, thankfully, the mayor and New York can put this unfortunate and misguided prosecution behind them.”
The Bove memo implied that the indictment was brought for vague political reasons, including unveiling the case in September, just nine months before the June 24 primary in which Adams is running for re-election against multiple rivals, many of whom repeatedly reference his indictment as a reason to reject him.
The Trump Justice Department embraced Adams’ unfounded contention that he was unfairly targeted due to his complaints about the Biden administration.
In his memo, Bove wrote, “It cannot be ignored that Mayor Adams criticized the prior administration’s immigration policies before the charges were filed.”
Bove also questioned the integrity of the former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, a career prosecutor who had shepherded the three-year investigation and finally brought the charges against Adams.
Without naming him, Bove claimed “more recent public actions by the former U.S. attorney responsible for initiating the case have threatened the integrity of the proceedings” by “increasing prejudicial pretrial publicity that risks impacting potential witnesses and the jury pool.”
Williams recently penned an op-ed that did not specifically name Adams but criticized a culture of corruption that has long tainted New York politics.
The timing of the indictment and Williams op-ed, Bove argued, “improperly interfered with Mayor Adams’ campaign in the 2025 mayoral election.”
After he was elected, Trump made a point of claiming federal prosecutors had treated Adams “very unfairly,” and said he would consider pardoning him.
Adams, for his part, met with Trump twice since the election, and repeatedly declined to say anything critical about Trump, going so far as to order top aides during a closed-door meeting Monday not to say anything negative about the president.
The transactional nature of this back-and-forth appears to be a key factor in the Justice Department’s decision to take the highly unusual step of pulling the plug on an investigation that took three years and resulted in a historical indictment of a sitting New York City mayor.
The memo downplays the implication of a quid-pro-quo: dismissing charges in exchange for Adams’ help in the Trump immigration initiative.
Southern District prosecutors met last month with Bove to discuss the department possibly dismissing the case. During a January 31 meeting, the memo states, Bove told them “the government is not offering to exchange dismissal of a criminal case for Adams’ assistance on immigration enforcement.”
But the memo makes clear the two issues are connected, implying that the pending criminal case was hurting the mayor’s ability to address the Trump administration’s most important issue: the mass deportation of migrants.
The department was “particularly concerned about the impact of the prosecution on Mayor Adams’ ability to support critical, ongoing federal efforts ‘to protect the American people from the disastrous effects of unlawful mass migration and resettlement’,” the memo stated, quoting one of Trump’s executive orders.
Trump’s Department of Justice also took the unusual step of pausing investigation of the case until after this coming November’s mayoral election, and the Department ordered the office to “take all steps within your power to cause Mayor Adams’ security clearance to be restored.”
A spokesperson for acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Sassoon declined to comment. Spokespersons for the FBI’s New York Office and for city Department of Investigation Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber — the agencies that handled the investigation — also declined to comment.
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