NEW YORK — The top Manhattan federal prosecutor who resigned over the Justice Department’s orders to drop the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams drafted a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi opposing the dismissal and asking to discuss the case with her directly.
It’s not clear if Danielle Sassoon ever sent the undated letter, which was disclosed in court filings on Tuesday. But the draft shows that Sassoon, who was at the time the interim U.S. attorney for Manhattan, considered appealing directly to the Justice Department’s top official as she tried to safeguard the Adams case in the face of what Sassoon saw as political interference.
Behind the Scenes: The Drafted Letter
The letter appears to have been written in early February, and in a separate letter on Feb. 12 announcing her resignation, Sassoon said she and Bondi hadn’t met or discussed the five-count corruption case against the Democratic mayor.
Sasson didn’t respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. Her opposition to dismissing the Adams case has been well documented, but the draft letter to Bondi reveals new details about the behind-the-scenes discussions as career prosecutors in Manhattan tried to preserve a corruption case they had spent years building. Top officials at DOJ have argued that the case should be dismissed because it has hindered Adams’ ability to help President Donald Trump’s agenda.
The Justice Department’s request to dismiss the case remains pending before a federal judge.
In Sassoon’s draft letter, she wrote that she first learned that the department was “leaning toward” trying to abandon the case on Jan. 27 — seven days after Trump took office — during a discussion with Emil Bove, then the acting deputy attorney general.
At that point, Sassoon wrote, she “expressed concern” about making a decision to drop the case before the Senate had confirmed Trump’s permanent pick to be deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche. But Bove, Sassoon wrote, told her that Blanche was on the “same page,” and there was “no need to wait.”
Justice Department officials do not typically discuss sensitive details about pending cases with nominees before they are confirmed. Such discussions could raise ethical problems or weaken the presumption of confidentiality that typically covers internal legal deliberations.
Challenges Faced and Contemplated Actions
Blanche was subsequently confirmed in early March.
A Justice Department spokesperson said: “Todd Blanche was not involved in the Department’s decision-making prior to his confirmation.”
Sassoon made clear in her draft letter that Bove had not been receptive to Sassoon’s concerns about the Adams dismissal effort. So Sassoon contemplated bringing her concerns directly to Bondi.
“I have not been given any opportunity to raise my concerns with you and the restricted discussions with Mr. Bove to date are no substitute,” Sassoon wrote.
In a meeting, Sassoon continued, Bove allotted prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office 40 minutes to address the chronology of the Adams investigation and another 40 minutes to listen to Adams’ attorneys discuss “the impact of the case on his ability to govern and assist in the Administration’s immigration efforts.”
“That simply does not suffice,” Sassoon wrote.
And Sassoon criticized what she would later describe as part of a quid pro quo: “Adams’ advocacy should be called out for what it is: an improper effort to withhold immigration assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case.”
She also mentioned a Jan. 16 op-ed by the former U.S. attorney who brought the case, Damian Williams. In the piece, Williams criticized aspects of New York City and state government, and Adams’ lawyers had seized on it to argue that it was evidence of Williams’ political motivations in bringing the case.
Sassoon made clear she disapproved of Williams’ commentary, but she said it was not a basis to dismiss the case.
“While I was personally disappointed in my predecessor’s self-serving actions after his departure, including the creation of a personal website, there are myriad ways to address any arising prejudice or perception of weaponization well short of a dismissal,” Sassoon wrote.
Williams declined to comment.
On Feb. 10, Bove ordered Sassoon to drop the case. He told her he wasn’t questioning the strength of the evidence or the legal theories underpinning the case, but that the Trump administration believed the prosecution was interfering with the mayor’s ability to enforce Trump’s immigration policies.
Rather than follow the order, Sassoon quit in protest, penning an eight-page letter rejecting Bove’s arguments and accusing him of improperly agreeing to abandon the case in exchange for the mayor’s support for Trump policies. Bove’s order also subsequently triggered the resignation of a wave of other prosecutors in New York and Washington.
