Trump official's demand in Adams case forces Justice department showdown

Washington: In less than a month in power, President Donald Trump's political appointees have embarked on an unapologetic, strong-arm effort to impose their will on the Justice Department, seeking to justify their actions as the simple reversal of the "politicization" of federal law enforcement under their Biden-era predecessors.

The ferocious campaign -- executed by Emil Bove, Trump's former criminal defense lawyer who is now the department's acting No. 2 official -- is playing out in public, in real time, through a series of moves that underscore Trump's intention to bend the traditionally nonpartisan career staff in federal law enforcement to suit his ends.

That strategy has quickly precipitated a crisis that is an early test of how resilient the norms of the criminal justice system will prove to be against the pressures brought by a retribution-minded president and his appointees.

On Thursday, the interim US attorney in Manhattan, Danielle R. Sassoon, resigned rather than sign off on Bove's command to dismiss the corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams. Sassoon is no member of the liberal resistance: She clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and had been appointed to her post by Trump's team.

Dropping the charges "for reasons having nothing to do with the strength of the case" went against the "duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor," she wrote in a letter to Bove explaining her decision.

Bove, rebuffed by Sassoon, tried a procedural end-around, asking officials in the department's Washington headquarters to take over the case, then have someone on their staff sign the dismissal.

Instead, five prosecutors in the criminal division and public integrity unit also quit, leaving their colleagues to furtively discuss their options, expressing their hope that they would not be called upon to take actions that would end with their resignation or termination.

As of late Thursday, no department official had formally filed the dismissal motion in federal court.

The consequences of the confrontation extend far beyond the fate of Adams. It has set up what promises to be a protracted and damaging battle over the integrity, independence and direction of a department that Trump views like a piece of captured battlefield artillery he is now able to turn against his attackers.

Bove is, in the view of his critics, imposing what amounts to a political loyalty test on prosecutors -- demanding they comply with his requests -- however unacceptable and incompatible with norms -- or get out.

It is no accident, they say, that Bove has quickly targeted some of its most powerful officials and divisions: overseeing a shake-up at the national security division, insisting that the FBI's acting leadership turn over a list of agents who worked on the Capitol riot investigations and, finally, targeting the most prestigious US attorney's office in the country, known for guarding its independence.

"It's a symptom of a bigger problem -- how are we going to do this for four more years, having to choose whether to do something unethical or be fired?" said a current Justice Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, asking why Congress seemed unwilling to intervene. "Everyone has to jump ship or be thrown overboard."

No U.S. attorney's office "is a separate sovereign," Bove said in a statement sent to reporters after Sassoon stepped aside.

Bove's boss, Attorney General Pam Bondi, has vowed to root out "politicized" officials in the department, without providing evidence of wrongdoing or professional misconduct.

On her first day in office, she announced the creation of a "Weaponization Working Group," purportedly intended to root out "abuses of the criminal justice process" by local and federal law enforcement officers, including those who had investigated Trump.

Current and former Justice Department officials view those claims as merely an excuse to justify the brazen politicization of the department under Trump and his team. It has left many employees angry and worried for the department's future.

The Adams case brought those concerns to a head.

One veteran prosecutor told a friend late Thursday that he was not answering phone calls, in hopes of avoiding a demand to take an action that would force his resignation.

Thursday's events have echoes in the department's darkest distant past. During the Watergate era, senior political appointees resigned rather than carry out what they viewed as an unlawful order to fire the prosecutor investigating President Richard Nixon -- an event referred to as the Saturday Night Massacre.

Thursday's crisis was different, according to Justice Department veterans, in that the political leadership seemed resolved to assert total control over the career prosecutors that many staff members see as the backbone of the agency.

There is growing fear at department headquarters that its politically appointed leaders are determined to remove an entire layer of highly qualified and experienced senior career officials and, in doing so, end the traditional independence of investigating and charging corruption cases. The administration has already moved on a number of fronts to scale back anti-corruption work.

In response, current and former Justice Department officials said, defense lawyers on a wide variety of cases are drafting direct appeals to Bove to try to nullify pending charges or investigations.

In her letter of refusal to Bove, Sassoon suggested that should he find a career employee to sign off on his request, the judge overseeing the case was likely to ask tough questions of department officials.

To an agency run by lawyers, Bove's actions after her resignation were even more troubling than his order that she drop the case. Bove did not try to give the same instruction to another person in her office in New York. In fact, he placed several of Sassoon's deputies on paid leave pending an investigation of their role in the episode.

Instead, he took the unusual step of rerouting his demand to career officials in Washington, and fared no better.

Two senior lawyers, who had been tapped for interim leadership positions by the Trump administration, resigned. Current and former officials pointed out that what Bove asked them to do may well violate bar rules and their oath -- to dismiss a criminal case without having reviewed the facts or the law.

Later, three other officials in the department's public integrity unit also refused to follow Bove's directive and resigned.

Days earlier, Bondi issued a memo insisting that Justice Department lawyers could not avoid signing legal documents they happened to disagree with. Given that explicit instruction, Bove's demands for someone in the department to sign the document carry an unspoken threat, these officials said: Do it or leave.

Bove, in a memo to Sassoon this week, said his order for dismissal was not based on questions about the evidence collected by prosecutors, but because the charges filed against the mayor last fall came too close to the 2025 mayoral election and created the appearance that the indictment was intended to influence the outcome.

He also claimed that the indictment, which resulted in the stripping of Adams' security clearance, made it harder for the mayor to cooperate with the administration on immigration enforcement. The assertion amounted to a highly unusual injection of a policy issue into a criminal case.

"There is no room at the Justice Department for attorneys who refuse to execute on the priorities of the executive branch," Bove wrote Thursday, adding that he looked forward to working with the U.S. attorney's office "on the important priorities President Trump has laid out for us to make America safe again."