Lead Prosecutor in Adams Case Resigns With Scathing Letter: Not ‘Enough of a Fool or Enough of a Coward To File Your Motion’

Another star prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, Hagan Scotten, is resigning in protest of the Justice Department’s decision to seek a dismissal of the corruption charges against Mayor Adams.He sent the Justice Department a scathing resignation letter saying he is not “enough of a fool or enough of a coward” to support the dismissal. Mr. Scotten, the lead prosecutor on Mr. Adams’ case, was put on paid leave Thursday as the Justice Department investigated the Southern District of New York’s response to the order to dismiss the charges against the mayor.In his resignation letter, Mr. Scotten said he was never given an order to dismiss the charges. However, he said he agreed with the opposition from the former acting U.S. attorney at Manhattan, Danielle Sassoon.The memo ordering the dismissal insists that the case had been tainted by publicity and that the charges were hindering Mr. Adams’ ability to do his job. Mr. Scotten said the first explanation was “so weak as to be transparently pretextual.”“The second justification is worse,” he said. “No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.”Mr. Scotten noted that some will “view the mistake you are committing here in the light of their generally negative views of the new administration.” However, he said, “I do not share those views. I can even understand how a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal.”While he wrote that he could understand the thinking behind the deal, he offered a blistering critique.“Any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way,” Mr. Scotten said. “If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.”Mr. Scotten’s resignation marks the seventh prosecutor, as of Friday afternoon, to quit their job in protest this week. On Monday, the acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, issued a memo to prosecutors at Manhattan ordering that they dismiss the corruption case against the New York City mayor. Then then-acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, sent a letter to Attorney General Bondi stating that the order “raises serious concerns that render the contemplated dismissal inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good-faith arguments before the courts.”Ms. Sassoon also said she believed Mr. Adams was making “an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case.” Her letter specifically accused the mayor of suggesting what “amounted to a quid pro quo” to have his charges dismissed in exchange for his cooperation on immigration enforcement. “It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with the dismissal of a criminal indictment. Nor will a court likely find that such an improper exchange is consistent with the public interest,” she added.Ms. Sassoon also said she disagreed with the claim that the charges were politically motivated and shared that prosecutors had considered charging Mr. Adams with destroying evidence and making false statements to the FBI. Ms. Sassoon resigned from her position on Thursday. Mr. Bove criticized her leadership and shared that the line prosecutors on Mr. Adams’ case would be placed on leave pending an investigation. Besides the turmoil at the SDNY, the situation has fueled allegations of a quid pro quo that has led Democrats in New York to suggest Mr. Adams is effectively working for the Trump administration on immigration enforcement in exchange for having his charges dropped. During a Friday interview on Fox News, Mr. Adams expressed a desire to loosen the city’s sanctuary law to increase cooperation between the NYPD and immigration officials. The mayor, who pleaded not guilty to the corruption charges, also insisted it was “silly” to suggest he had made an agreement with the Trump administration to end his prosecution. In a statement, Mr. Adams’ attorney, Alex Spiro, denied that there was a quid pro quo, calling the allegation a “total lie.”

Lead Prosecutor in Adams Case Resigns With Scathing Letter: Not ‘Enough of a Fool or Enough of a Coward To File Your Motion’

Lead Prosecutor in Adams Case Resigns With Scathing Letter: Not ‘Enough of a Fool or Enough of a Coward To File Your Motion’

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