Following stunning resignations by several federal prosecutors last week, Emil Bove got his Eric Adams dismissal motion filed late Friday — but that’s not the end of the matter. On Tuesday morning, U.S. District Judge Dale Ho ordered the parties to appear Wednesday for a proceeding at which the judge could have some tough questions.
Recall that Bove, a Trump criminal defense lawyer-turned-Trump Justice Department lawyer, wants the New York City mayor’s corruption indictment dismissed “without prejudice.” As opposed to seeking dismissal “with prejudice,” doing so “without prejudice” would mean that the case could be revived someday, giving the Republican administration continued leverage over the Democrat, who’s been backing Trump’s immigration enforcement priorities.
Letters from Manhattan federal prosecutors who oversaw the Adams case made clear they found Bove’s dismissal proposal to be a corrupt one that would require them to betray their oaths. For example, a letter from Danielle Sassoon, who before resigning was the interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said she was at a Jan. 31 meeting with Bove, Adams’ counsel and members of her office in which Adams’ attorneys “repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.”
Bove’s motion said he “concluded that dismissal is necessary because of appearances of impropriety and risks of interference with the 2025 elections in New York City” — where Adams is up for re-election. The motion also said Bove had concluded that continuing the case would disrupt Adams’ “ability to govern in New York City, which poses unacceptable threats to public safety, national security, and related federal immigration initiatives and policies.” A court filing from Adams lawyer Alex Spiro to Judge Ho on Tuesday denied a quid pro quo; though the lawyer attached a Feb. 3 letter to Bove after their meeting, in which Spiro wrote, among other things, that if Adams is removed from office, “he would be replaced at least temporarily by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a frequent outspoken critic of Mayor Adams’s desire to protect New Yorkers by combating the migrant crisis.”
In his order to the parties on Tuesday, Judge Ho, a Biden appointee and former American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who litigated against the first Trump administration, indicated he isn’t inclined to rubber-stamp Bove’s motion. Ho cited legal precedent standing for the proposition that the government has broad prosecutorial discretion but that, once an indictment is brought, the court has an independent role in examining whether dismissal is clearly contrary to the public interest. Setting a Wednesday hearing for 2 p.m. ET, the judge said that among the things the parties must be prepared to address are “the reasons for the Government’s motion,” the “scope and effect” of Adams’ written consent to the dismissal, and “the procedure for resolution of the motion.” Ultimately, the hearing could wind up simply yielding probing questions from the judge that nonetheless lead him to conclude he has no choice but to approve the dismissal, despite however shady the DOJ’s actions seem. Or it could set up a dramatic legal test of the limits of judicial and prosecutorial power and the extent to which courts can delve into the government’s motivations in these situations (something Ho is familiar with in a different context from his litigation against the first Trump administration). But the hearing should give a sense of which direction this is headed. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in Donald Trump’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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