Manhattan’s federal prosecutor has resigned rather than obey a Justice Department order to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The withdrawal of Danielle Sassoon, a Republican who was the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, was confirmed by a spokesman for the office.
Her resignation came just days after Emil Bove, Trump’s former personal lawyer and now appointed deputy U.S. attorney, ordered New York prosecutors to drop the case against Adams, who has been accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions and bribes from people who wanted to buy his influence.
Bove had argued in a memo that the case should be dismissed so that Adams, a Democrat, could help President Donald Trump block New York’s aid to illegal immigrants.
The Justice Department’s decision to close the case because of political considerations, rather than the strength or weakness of the evidence, alarmed some career prosecutors who commented it was a departure from established norms and a use of politics to restrain justice. While Bove had ordered that the case be dismissed as soon as possible, days passed without public statement or action by the prosecution team in New York.
Sassoon, a former assistant to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was not the person who filed the lawsuit against Adams last year. The prosecutor who did so, Damian Williams, resigned earlier this year.
Sassoon had only been chosen to temporarily fill the role of acting U.S. attorney on Jan. 21, the day after the president took office. In November, Trump had already chosen Jay Clayton – former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission – for the post, a nomination that must be confirmed by the Senate.
The office she leads, the Southern District of New York, is among the largest and most important U.S. attorney’s offices in the United States, with a long history of fighting corruption and international terrorism.
During Trump’s first term, the office prosecuted both the president’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, and his strategic adviser, Steve Bannon, in separate cases. Cohen pleaded guilty to tax evasion and campaign finance charges. Trump ended the federal fraud case against Bannon by pardoning him, although nearly identical charges were later filed by state prosecutors.
Sassoon joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2016. In 2023, she helped lead the successful prosecution of the fraud case against Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
Mayor Adams had been indicted in September on charges of accepting more than $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel benefits such as airline tickets and luxury hotel stays.
The indictment states that a Turkish official, who helped facilitate the trips, then approached Adams for favors, including asking him to pressure the Fire Department to open a newly constructed 36-story diplomatic building in time for a scheduled visit by Turkey’s president.
Prosecutors said they have evidence that Adams personally directed his political aides to solicit foreign donations and disguise them to help the campaign qualify for a citizen program that provides a generous public contribution for small dollar donations. Under federal law, foreign nationals are prohibited from contributing to election campaigns.
As recently as January 6th, prosecutors had indicated that their investigation was still active, writing in court papers that they were continuing to “uncover additional criminal conduct by Adams.”
