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MANHATTAN (CN) — Danielle Sassoon, the veteran Manhattan federal prosecutor who has served as acting United States attorney for the Southern District of New York until President Donald Trump’s appointee takes over, resigned Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s office confirmed, over orders from the Trump’s Justice Department to drop the district’s 2024 bribery charges against New York City mayor Eric Adams.
“I cannot fulfill my obligations, effectively lead my office in carrying out the Department’s priorities, or credibly represent the Government before the courts, if I seek to dismiss the Adams case on this record,” Sassoon wrote in a damning letter to the newly sworn-in U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, refusing to drop the corruption indictment as directed by Department of Justice officials in a two-page memo earlier in the week.
Sassoon, a registered Republican, said negotiations between Adams’ lawyers and top officials in Trump’s Justice Department “amounted to a quid pro quo” in which the mayor would assist with law enforcement priorities only if his indictment were dismissed.
“Rather than be rewarded, Adams’s advocacy should be called out for what it is: an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case,” she wrote. “Although Mr. Bove disclaimed any intention to exchange leniency in this case for Adams’s assistance in enforcing federal law, that is the nature of the bargain laid bare in Mr. Bove’s memo.”
Her Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office was prepared to bring additional charges against Adams, including evidence tampering, Sassoon advised the Justice Department in her letter.
“We have proposed a superseding indictment that would add an obstruction conspiracy count based on evidence that Adams destroyed and instructed others to destroy evidence and provide false information to the FBI, and that would add further factual allegations regarding his participation in a fraudulent straw donor scheme,” she wrote.
Deputy United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Matthew Podolsky will take over as Sassoon’s position as acting U.S. attorney.
The Justice Department orders came just days before the abrupt shakeup in the “Sovereign District of New York,” so called for its reputation of prosecutorial independence.
Sassoon was tapped to lead the Southern District until former SEC chairman Jay Clayton, Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney, passes the confirmation process.
Sassoon, who previously worked as litigation attorney at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia for the 2012-2013 term, cross-examined FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried during his criminal trial in Manhattan federal court in 2023.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor who served as defense co-counsel in Trump’s hush money criminal trial, said in letter formally accepting Sassoon’s resignation that he’d directed her to drop the Adams case based on “well-founded concerns regarding weaponization, election interference, and the impediments that the case has imposed on Mayor Adams’ ability to govern and cooperate with federal law enforcement to keep New York City safe.”
“This decision is based on your choice to continue pursuing a politically motivated prosecution despite an express instruction to dismiss the case,” Bove wrote. “You lost sight of the oath that you took when started at the Department of Justice by suggesting that you retain discretion to interpret the Constitution in a manner inconsistent with the policies of a democratically elected President and Senate-confirmed Attorney General.”
Adams is accused of accepting and concealing luxury perks and illegal campaign contributions from Turkish businessmen and a government official, who supposedly used the mayor to gain political influence in New York City. Prosecutors claim Adams pressed city regulators to expedite the approval of a 36-story Manhattan skyscraper housing the Turkish Consulate General in 2021 despite concerns about the tower’s fire safety systems.
In exchange, Adams received first-class tickets on Turkish Airlines — an international airline owned partly by the Turkish government — among other perks, according to the indictment.
Adams, a 64-year-old Democrat and former police officer, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. After news of the indictment broke, the mayor claimed he was being targeted by then-President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice for speaking out against federal immigration policy under Biden.
The mayor’s personal defense attorney Alex Spiro held a press conference in midtown Manhattan on Wednesday, where he declared victory over the federal charges and accused former U.S. Attorney Damian Williams of bringing the case only to advance his career.
“This was no search for truth — they were after him and they figured out a way to invent a crime,” Spiro told reporters.
He continued: “Is it greed? Is it fame? Is it political office? Are the trying to impress Washington? Are the trying to update their LinkedIn page?”
Spiro pushed back on Thursday against Sassoon’s accusations of any improper leveraging of New York City resources for aid in getting the case dropped.
“The idea that there was a quid pro quo is a total lie,” he wrote. “We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us … We were asked if the case had any bearing on national security and immigration enforcement and we truthfully answered it did.”
As of Thursday, the case had not been formally dismissed.
Sassoon’s resignation is not the first time a Trump administration has caused abrupt shift in leadership of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Just over a month after Trump first took office in 2017, the newly sworn-in Republican president fired then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara after he spurned demands to resign voluntarily.
One of Bharara’s money-laundering cases against a gold trader named Reza Zarrab had embarrassed the Turkish government, and Zarrab’s then-lawyer Rudy Giuliani had been shuttling between Washington and Turkey’s capital of Ankara lobbying to free his client. Trump reportedly tried to personally intervene to make the case disappear.
Refusing to step down, Bharara publicly forced Trump to fire him.
Three years later, Trump appointee Geoffrey Berman was fired from the Manhattan office after a weekend standoff with U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, who tried to force Berman to resign so he could install Clayton, a man with no experience as a prosecutor or a litigator, in the position.
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