NYC Mayor Eric Adams speaks during a press conference with NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch at Bellevue Hospital Center on Feb. 18, 2025 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
A top Department of Justice official on Wednesday offered a new rationale for the DOJ’s controversial decision to ask a federal judge to dismiss its criminal corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
DOJ Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle in a series of 20 tweets questioned the legal theories used by prosecutors in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office to obtain an indictment against Adams last year.
“The case against Mayor Adams was just one in a long history of past DOJ actions that represent grave errors of judgement,” Mizelle wrote in the first of those tweets.
Mizelle’s tweet thread came less than two hours before DOJ attorneys are scheduled to appear at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to explain to a judge their reasons for requesting a dismissal of the case.
And it came days after the acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney of Manhattan, Danielle Sassoon, and six other top prosecutors resigned rather than carry out an order by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to file the dismissal motion.
That motion, which Bove and other prosecutors filed Friday, says Bove had concluded that continuing the case would interfere with the mayor’s ability to govern, “which poses unacceptable threats to public safety, national security, and related federal immigration initiatives and policies.”
The court filing also said Bove concluded the dismissal was necessary “because of the appearances of impropriety and risks of interference” with New York’s primary and mayoral elections this year.
Sassoon and others have suggested that the DOJ and Adams have engaged in a quid pro quo in which the department agrees to drop the criminal case in exchange for Adams cooperating with the enforcement of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
Last week, after meeting with Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, the mayor agreed to allow federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into New York City’s massive jail complex on Riker’s Island.
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