The memo was addressed to performing U.S. Legal professional for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon and despatched from Emil Bove, Trump’s former private protection lawyer who’s now performing as his interim No. 2 on the DOJ.
“You are directed, as authorized by the Attorney General, to dismiss the pending charges” in opposition to Adams, the memo learn, “as soon as is practicable.” The New York Instances first reported the event.
The fees in opposition to Adams — together with wire fraud, bribery, and soliciting unlawful marketing campaign contributions from overseas nationals — carried as much as 45 years in jail. Jury choice was set to start on April 21, simply two months earlier than June’s Democratic mayoral major.
Adams’ legal professional, Alex Spiro, stated, “The mayor is innocent—and he would prevail. Today he has. The Department of Justice has reevaluated this case and determined it should not go forward. There is good reason for that. The facts of the case are clear: the mayor never used his official position for personal benefit. Nor did he have any role in violating campaign finance laws.
“Despite a lot of fanfare and sensational claims, ultimately there was no evidence presented that he broke any laws, ever. The witnesses that were promised never materialized. The additional charges that were threatened never came. Now, thankfully, the mayor and New York can put this unfortunate and misguided prosecution behind them,” he stated.
The explosive indictment filed in September charged Adams with accepting bribes and unlawful marketing campaign contributions in trade for abusing his affect as New York Metropolis’s strongest authorities official and, previous to that, as Brooklyn borough president.
Adams was accused of taking hundreds of {dollars} value of advantages beginning in round 2014, together with first-class flights and lodge stays all around the world, from overseas benefactors with ties to the Turkish authorities who sought to someday money in on their relationship. The feds stated he paid again his money owed partly by pushing the FDNY to open a Midtown skyscraper housing Turkey’s consulate within the months earlier than the overall election.
A spokesman for Sassoon couldn’t instantly be reached for remark.
President Donald Trump. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photographs)
The dismissal transfer comes regardless of representations by the prosecuting group in latest months that they’d found new legal conduct.
Final month, a Brooklyn actual property magnate related to Turkish officers admitted to orchestrating straw donations in the direction of Adams’ mayoral marketing campaign on the behest of Adams in a plea deal believed to require his cooperation at trial. Final week, a former Metropolis Corridor aide to Adams indicated he’s pleading responsible to related expenses.
Rumors started circulating after Trump’s election victory {that a} potential pardon might be on the desk for the mayor, who has been reluctant to criticize the president and his hardline immigration insurance policies. Trump empathized with Adams in public remarks, evaluating the mayor’s authorized woes to his personal in criticizing the DOJ beneath the Biden administration as politicized. Trump is a Republican, and Adams is a Democrat.
Then, final week, The Instances reported that Trump’s interim leaders on the DOJ, led by his lawyer from the hush cash case, Bove, had begun speaking to Adams’ authorized group and prosecutors within the Southern District of New York about dropping the case altogether. A dismissal instead of a politically delicate pardon precludes Trump from having to take care of potential blowback from the general public and permits Adams to say the case was flawed.
Former Manhattan U.S. Legal professional Damian Williams, who introduced the bombshell case in opposition to Adams and resigned earlier than Trump took workplace, couldn’t instantly be reached for remark.
This creating story will probably be up to date.
Initially Printed: February 10, 2025 at 7:17 PM EST
