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justice department
'Profiles in Courage': Four NYC Deputy Mayors to Resign Over Eric Adams' Quid Pro Quo With Trump
"With the resignation of deputy mayors, it has become clear that Mayor Adams has now lost the confidence and trust of his own staff, his colleagues in government, and New Yorkers."
Feb 17, 2025
As news broke Monday that four of New York City Mayor Eric Adams' top deputies plan to resign over the alleged deal Adams made with the Trump administration in order to get his corruption case dismissed, calls mounted for the mayor to end the chaos by stepping down.
First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer was joined by Meera Joshi and Anne Williams-Isom, who oversee operations and health and human services in the city of more than 8 million people, in a joint statement to their staff Monday announcing that they would step down "due to the extraordinary events of the last few weeks and to stay faithful to the oaths we swore to New Yorkers and our families."
Deputy Mayor Chauncey Parker, who oversees public safety and had been involved in the mayors' plans to cooperate with President Donald Trump's deportation agenda, also announced he would resign. There are eight deputy mayors in all who help manage the city's services.
The resignations by the four deputy mayors come just days after Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced her own resignation after U.S. Justice Department officials pressured federal prosecutors to dismiss their indictment of Adams, a Democrat.
The mayor was indicted on charges of bribery, campaign finance violations, and conspiracy offenses last year, with prosecutors accusing him of taking bribes from foreign nationals.
Sassoon wrote in her resignation letter that "Adams' attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with department's [immigration] enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed."
She said he had plainly offered the Trump administration "immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case."
President Donald Trump and his border czar, Thomas Homan, have launched a deportation operation in cities across the country, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement having arrested more than 8,700 people—many of whom had only committed the civil offense of being in the country without the proper documentation.
On Monday, Georgetown University law professor and former ACLU national legal director David Cole said the four deputy mayors were "profiles in courage" for their decision to leave the Adams administration.
Several New York officials said the mass exodus of half of the mayor's top deputies would be calamitous for the government of the country's largest city, and called for the mayor's prompt resignation—or removal.
City Comptroller Brad Lander said he would convene an "Inability Committee" to force Adams out of City Hall, unless he can "provide a contingency plan to the 8 million New Yorkers who rely on city services to function."
City Council member Shahana Hanif called the mass resignation a "clear bellwether" and said New York Gov. Kathy Hochul should take action to remove Adams from office.
The loss of the deputy mayors "would be an unmitigated disaster for the city of New York and everyone in it," said U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who represents constituents in Queens and The Bronx. "Adams' coercion under Trump risks significant, long-term harm to the people of New York. We cannot afford it. A [hollowed-out] city government is one emergency away from disaster."
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Trump Justice Department Moves to Complete 'Openly Corrupt Legal Bailout' of Eric Adams
"The Adams case confirms that as long as Bondi is in office, the rule of law will be subordinate to Trump's personal motivations."
Feb 15, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump's Justice Department formally moved Friday night to drop charges against Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams after at least seven federal prosecutors resigned, refusing to carry out what's been described as an "openly corrupt legal bailout."
In a new filing signed by veteran prosecutor Edward Sullivan, the Department of Justice requested "dismissal without prejudice of the charges" against Adams, who was indicted last year on multiple counts of wire fraud, bribery, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations after an investigation that began in 2021. "Without prejudice" means the charges could be brought again.
It's an open question how Dale Ho, the judge overseeing the case, will respond. Some experts say he could reject the DOJ's request on the grounds that it is politically motivated.
The Justice Department, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi and Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, has said openly that its push to dismiss the charges against Adams has nothing to do with the "strength of the evidence" against Adams.
Rather, the decision is a remarkably transparent effort to ensure the New York City mayor's full cooperation with Trump's anti-immigrant agenda.
Sullivan reportedly signed the new Justice Department filing under significant duress. According to Reuters, Bove "told the department's career public integrity prosecutors in a meeting on Friday that they had an hour to decide among themselves who would file the motion," signaling they would all be fired if no one capitulated.
"The volunteer was Ed Sullivan, a veteran career prosecutor, who agreed to alleviate pressure on his colleagues in the department's public integrity section," Reutersreported, citing two unnamed sources. "Sullivan's decision came after the attorneys in the meeting contemplated resigning en masse, rather than filing the motion to dismiss... There are approximately 30 attorneys in the Public Integrity Section."
"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."
Brewing opposition inside the Justice Department exploded into public view this week as prosecutors opted to step down rather than carry out the DOJ leadership's orders to seek dismissal of the Adams charges.
Danielle Sassoon, former interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York who announced her departure earlier this week, wrote in a letter to Bondi on February 12 that she was "baffled by the rushed and superficial process" by which the decision to drop the charges against Adams was reached, "in seeming collaboration with Adams' counsel and without my direct input."
In a footnote of the letter, Sassoon described a meeting she and members of her team attended with Bove—who previously served as a member of Trump's personal legal team—and Adams' counsel.
"Adams' attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the department's enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed," Sassoon wrote. "Mr. Bove admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion."
Shortly before the Justice Department submitted its new filing on Friday, Hagan Scotten, a federal prosecutor assigned to the Adams case, announced his resignation in a scathing letter to Bove.
"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," Scotten wrote. "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."
"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," he added. "But it was never going to be me."
Ahead of the DOJ's filing, Adams appeared on "Fox & Friends" alongside Trump immigration czar Tom Homan in what one observer characterized as a hostage video "broadcast live on national television."
During the segment, Homan smilingly threatened that if Adams "doesn't come through" for the Trump administration, "we won't be sitting on a couch; I'll be in his office, up his butt, saying, 'Where the hell is the agreement we came to?'"
In a separate sitdown with Homan on Thursday, Adams committed to "return federal immigration agents to the Rikers Island jail complex in New York City," Politicoreported.
Thinly veiled Homan warning to Adams: “If he doesn’t come through … I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, Where the hell is the agreement we came to” pic.twitter.com/Pq0msJXZGb
— Emily Ngo (@emilyngo) February 14, 2025
In a column on Friday, The American Prospect's Ryan Cooper and David Dayen wrote that it is "striking just how awesomely gratuitous this all is."
"Nixon sacked his attorney general because the investigation was closing in on him personally and he wanted to escape. It was corrupt, but it made sense as a desperate last-ditch effort," they wrote. "Trump is letting Adams off the hook because he wants a stooge dependent on his goodwill in the mayor's seat while his deportation goons run riot in New York. That's a modest benefit at best; the mayor has limited tools to prevent ICE operations, though he's already offered up Rikers Island, the notorious prison that was due to close, as a migrant detention center."
"And it shows that the most willing enabler of Trump corruption in the entire government is Attorney General Bondi," Cooper and Dayen added. "This is approximately how she ran the Justice Department in Florida, doing favors for her donors and allies while firing attorneys in the department who got in the way, like the prosecutors looking into foreclosure fraud. The Adams case confirms that as long as Bondi is in office, the rule of law will be subordinate to Trump's personal motivations."
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'A Clear Violation': Eight Inspectors General Sue Trump Over Illegal Firings
"President Trump's attempt to eliminate a crucial and long-standing source of impartial, nonpartisan oversight of his administration is contrary to the rule of law."
Feb 12, 2025
Eight of at least 17 inspectors general recently fired by U.S. President Donald Trump jointly filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday in hopes of returning to their roles as watchdogs "ensuring the effective and efficient operation" of government agencies.
Inspectors general (IGs) do their jobs "by auditing and investigating their agencies' operations and personnel in order to detect and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse, and by making recommendations for improved agency operations," explains the complaint, filed in the District of Columbia.
"Over the years," the document notes, "IGs' nonpartisan work has saved American taxpayers billions of dollars; helped safeguard U.S. national security; stopped fraud (and helped to both recover the fruits of such fraud and put fraudsters in prison); helped to end mistreatment of some of the nation's most vulnerable citizens; and ensured that veterans, farmers, senior citizens, disaster victims, and other Americans receive the support and services to which they are entitled by law."
The complaint argues that "the purported firings violated unambiguous federal statutes—each enacted by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed into law by the president—to protect inspector generals from precisely this sort of interference with the discharge of their critical, non-partisan oversight duties."
The plaintiffs are:
- Phyllis K. Fong, Department of Agriculture;
- Robert P. Storch, Department of Defense;
- Sandra D. Bruce, Department of Education;
- Christi A. Grimm, Department of Health and Human Services;
- Larry D. Turner, Department of Labor;
- Cardell K. Richardson, Department of State; and
- Michael J. Missal, Department of Veterans Affairs; and
- Hannibal "Mike" Ware, Small Business Administration.
In addition to Trump, their complaint names as defendants the acting or Senate-confirmed leaders of each agency.
"President Trump is wrong to claim these actions were 'common' or 'standard.' To the contrary, since 1980, there has been a bipartisan consensus that it is improper for a new presidential administration to remove IGs en masse," the filing says. "President Trump's attempt to eliminate a crucial and long-standing source of impartial, nonpartisan oversight of his administration is contrary to the rule of law."
The fired federal workers are asking the district court to void their ousters, "so they remain the duly appointed IGs of their respective agencies, unless and until the president lawfully removes them" with a 30-day notice to Congress that details the reason for removal. In addition to getting their jobs back, they aim to block the named agency leaders, "or anyone working in concert with them, from impeding the lawful exercise of the duties of their offices."
Missal told multiple media outlets that their firings were "a clear violation of the law" and "the IGs are bringing this action for reinstatement so that they can go back to work fighting fraud, waste, and abuse on behalf of the American people."
The lawsuit came a day after nine civil society groups pressured the Senate to "act now to reaffirm its oversight role and demand full explanations from President Trump as to why each inspector general was removed, as mandated by law."
The IG firings are part of a broader effort by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, chair of the president's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to purge the federal workforce and slash spending.
As USA Todaynoted Wednesday:
The Justice Department and FBI told top officials who investigated Trump and the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, to resign or be fired.
Trump tried to fire the head of the Federal Elections Commission, but she refused to leave. Trump tried to fire the head of the Office of Government Ethics, but a federal judge temporarily reinstated Hampton Dellinger, who argued he was removed unlawfully, while the case is litigated.
Citing an unnamed source, the newspaper also reported that the White House on Tuesday night fired Paul K. Martin, inspector general at the U.S. Agency for International Development, after he "issued a
scathing report saying staff cuts and funding pauses at the agency put more than $489 million in food assistance around the world at risk of spoiling."
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