A federal judge in New York City ordered Mayor Eric Adams and Trump administration Department of Justice (DOJ) officials to court over the motion to dismiss corruption charges filed under the Biden administration.
In an order Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Dale Ho directed both parties to appear before the Lower Manhattan court on Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET.
The judge also ordered Adams to file his “consent in writing” to the motion to dismiss to the court docket by 5 p.m. ET Tuesday. Ho said the DOJ motion cited how Adams “consented in writing,” but no such document had been submitted to the court.
The DOJ motion cites one judicial opinion regarding the federal rule for dismissal, stating “the executive branch remains the absolute judge of whether a prosecution should be initiated and the first and presumptively the best judge of whether a pending prosecution should be terminated,” and “the exercise of its discretion with respect to the termination of pending prosecutions should not be judicially disturbed unless clearly contrary to manifest public interest.”
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Mayor Eric Adams leaves an event in New York City on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Ho, however, cited legal history, noting that a judge has independent obligations once the government has involved the judiciary by obtaining an indictment or a conviction. Additionally, he quoted from one judicial opinion that said a judge must be “satisfied that the reasons advanced for the proposed dismissal are substantial” before approving a dismissal.
Adams said four of his deputy mayors resigned on Monday in the fallout from the Justice Department’s push to end the corruption case against him and ensure his cooperation with President Donald Trump’s criminal illegal immigration crackdown.
Several top prosecutors in Manhattan and Washington, D.C., also have resigned since the Justice Department filed its motion Friday seeking to drop the case.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Monday she is weighing removing Adams from office. Her former boss, ex-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is among those rumored to be considering a challenge to Adams in June’s Democratic mayoral primary, though he has not officially announced his candidacy. Among the candidates already in the race against the first-term mayor is former City Comptroller Scott Stringer and current City Comptroller Brad Lander.
New York City mayoral candidate, current City Comptroller Brad Lander, speaks during a press conference on Feb. 18, 2025, in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Lander, a progressive endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., threatened to initiate a process of removing Adams without the governor’s approval.
In a letter to Hochul on Tuesday, Stringer implored the governor to remove Adams, arguing the mayor “has lost the confidence of not only a growing number of other elected leaders and ordinary New Yorkers, but those in closest proximity to him – public servants he hired to aid in managing a massive workforce and budget.”
The Justice Department, meanwhile, is investigating alleged “insubordination” among federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.
Adams has pleaded not guilty to charges that, while in his prior role as Brooklyn borough president, he accepted over $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks from a Turkish official and business leaders seeking to buy his influence. The Democratic mayor was indicted at a time when he grew critical of the Biden administration’s response to the worsening immigrant crisis in the Big Apple.
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With Trump back in office, Adams is cooperating with border czar Tom Homan, allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to once again continue operations at Riker’s Island jail.
The upcoming mayoral primary comes at a time when a different judge, Jenny Rivera, of the New York Court of Appeals, considers a law that would allow some 800,000 noncitizens to vote in that race and other city-level contests if implemented.
A former Watergate prosecutor on Monday urged the federal judge presiding over Adams’ prosecution to assign a special counsel to help decide how to handle the DOJ motion, while three ex-U.S. attorneys demanded a “searching factual inquiry.”
This undated image provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, shows Danielle R. Sassoon, interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. (U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York via AP)
The last week has featured a public fight between Bove, the second-in-command of the Justice Department, and two top New York federal prosecutors: interim Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon and Hagan Scotten, an assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan who led the Adams prosecution. Sassoon and Scotten resigned.
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In his letter to Ho, attorney Nathaniel Akerman, the one-time Watergate prosecutor, echoed Sassoon’s assertion that the Justice Department had accepted a request by Adams’ lawyers for a “quid pro quo.” Adams denied that claim, writing in an X post on Friday, “I want to be crystal clear with New Yorkers: I never offered — nor did anyone offer on my behalf — any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case. Never.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
