US Attorney Explains in Letter Why She Refused to Drop Charges Against NYC Mayor

New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks during a press conference at City Hall following a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming "border czar" Tom Homan, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, in New York. Yuki Iwamura/AP Photo

A U.S. attorney who just resigned said she refused to drop charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams because she felt the motivation for stopping the prosecution was improper.

“Because the law does not support a dismissal, and because I am confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged, I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations,” Danielle Sassoon, a Republican who was acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) at the time, wrote in a Feb. 12 letter.

Prosecutors in 2024, while President Joe Biden was still in office, charged Adams, a Democrat, with accepting illegal campaign contributions.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered Sassoon on Feb. 10 to drop the charges because, he said, the timing of the charges and statements made by the prosecutor who brought them could unfairly prejudice jurors.

Danielle R. Sassoon, interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, in a file photo. U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York via AP

He also said prosecuting Adams would distract the mayor from helping crack down on illegal immigrants, a priority of the Trump administration.

Sassoon stepped down after receiving the order, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the SDNY has confirmed.

In the letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, which was disclosed after the resignation announcement, Sassoon said that she refused to comply with the order from Bove, one of her superiors.

“I understand my duty as a prosecutor to mean enforcing the law impartially, and that includes prosecuting a validly returned indictment regardless whether its dismissal would be politically advantageous, to the defendant or to those who appointed me,” Sassoon wrote.

“It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment,” she added later.

The U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment.

Sassoon became the acting U.S. attorney for the SDNY shortly after Trump took office on Jan. 20. Former U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, who resigned after Trump won the 2024 election, charged Adams.

Bove told Sassoon on Thursday that he accepted her resignation.

“Your office has no authority to contest the weaponization finding,” he said. “The Justice Department will not tolerate the insubordination.”

Bondi announced earlier in February that Justice Department lawyers who refuse orders, including any personnel who “delays or impedes the Department’s mission,” could be fired.

Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during a press briefing at the Department of Justice in Washington on Feb. 12, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Bove worked for SDNY from 2012 to 2021. He transitioned to private practice and later joined the legal team that defended Trump against criminal charges in New York, before joining the government after Trump’s second term started.

Sassoon has been replaced by Matthew Podolsky, who had recently been appointed the deputy U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the SDNY, a spokesman for the office told The Epoch Times in an email. Podolsky is serving in an acting capacity.

Trump has said he would nominate former U.S. Securities and Exchange Chairman Jay Clayton to head the office on a permanent basis.

Reuters contributed to this report.