A seventh federal prosecutor, Hagan Scotten, resigned after being assigned to the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The letter was directed to Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove.
The Justice Department’s (DOJ) effort to drop the charges against Adams has taken on the form of a political quid pro quo. In return for dropping the charges, the DOJ expects Adams to “devote his ‘full attention and resources’ to combating illegal immigration and to his 2025 reelection campaign.”
As early as February 13, Adams compensated the Trump administration by working to “reestablish the ability for ICE agents to operate on Rikers Island.”
Hagan Scotten’s Letter
I have received correspondence indicating that I refused your order to move to dismiss the indictment against Eric Adams without prejudice, subject to certain conditions, including the express possibility of reinstatement of the indictment. That is not exactly correct. The U.S. Attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon, never asked me to file such a motion, and I therefore never had an opportunity to refuse. But I am entirely in agreement with her decision not to do so, for the reasons stated in her February 12, 2025 letter to the Attorney General.
In short, the first justification for the motion—that Damian Williams’s role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence, and pursued under four different U.S. attorneys is so weak as to be transparently pretextual. The second justification is worse. 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….
Some will view the mistake you are committing here in the light of their generally negative views of the new Administration. 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. But 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. But it was never going to be me.
