The acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, resigned from her position in a letter to the attorney general, according to a person familiar with the matter.
In the letter, Sassoon did not say why she was resigning but she was under pressure to dismiss criminal charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, after being directed to do so earlier this week.
The Justice Department’s direction to drop the federal corruption case against Adams has raised questions about the independence of the country’s most prestigious US attorney’s office and the direction of its biggest city.
The two-page memo this week from Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove instructed the acting Southern District of New York attorney to dismiss the charges “as soon as is practicable.”
The Justice Department last year brought public corruption charges against Adams in the first prosecution of a sitting mayor in the city’s modern history. Adams pleaded not guilty, and the case was set to go to trial this spring.
The indictment alleged Adams’ illegal actions stretched back to 2014, when he was Brooklyn Borough president. Prosecutors said Adams received luxury travel benefits – including hotel room upgrades, meals and other perks – from a Turkish official. In exchange, prosecutors say, Adams pressured a New York City Fire Department official to grant permits to open a Turkish consular building that had failed to pass inspection.
Adams, who was registered as a Republican in the 1990s, has frequently said the prosecution was politically motivated by his criticism of the Biden administration’s response to an influx of migrant arrivals in the city beginning in the spring of 2022. (CNN News)
