The Sassoon Letter to Pam Bondi is the Kind of Courage we Need

We found an unlikely FBI hero in Brian Driscoll, now we have Danielle Sassoon at the Department of Justice

Today, we got a letter from the acting US Attorney in the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon. She just resigned from the DoJ because she refused to ask the court to dismiss the charges against Mayor Eric Adams. This prosecutor is far from a deep state leftist operative: she clerked for Antonin Scalia and is a card-carrying member of the Federalist Society. But today, she wrote an 8-page letter in protest to Emil Bove’s order to dismiss the charges against New York Mayor Adams, threatening to resign if she’d be required to ask the judge for a dismissal of the case.

I wanted to go over some of the stand-out parts of this incredible letter because it illustrates the kind of bravery I’ve been hoping to see from career prosecutors in the Department of Justice.

On February 10, 2025, I received a memorandum from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, directing me to dismiss the indictment against Mayor Eric Adams without prejudice, subject to certain conditions, which would require leave (permission) of court.

Mr. Bove rightly has never called into question that the case team conducted this investigation with integrity and that the charges against Adams are serious and supported by fact and law. Mr. Bove’s memo, however, which directs me to dismiss an indictment returned by a duly constituted grand jury for reasons having nothing to do with the strength of the case, raises serious concerns that render the contemplated dismissal inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good-faith arguments before the courts.

When I took my oath of office three weeks ago, I vowed to well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I was about to enter. In carrying out that responsibility, I am guided by, among other things, the Principles of Federal Prosecution set forth in the Justice Manual and your recent memoranda instructing attorneys for the Department of Justice to make only good-faith arguments and not to use the criminal enforcement authority of the United States to achieve political objectives or other improper aims.

I therefore deem it necessary to the faithful discharge of my duties to raise the concerns expressed in this letter with you and to request an opportunity to meet to discuss them further. 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.

After that strong introduction, Sassoon’s letter consists of three sections: first, that she doesn’t have a valid basis to dismiss the case. Second, that Eric Adams’ consent to the dismissal wouldn’t help her convince a judge that the case should be dismissed. And finally, the legal arguments for why she won’t ask a judge to dismiss the case against Adams. Here are some highlights from the first section:

The legal judgments of the Department of Justice must be impartial and insulated from political influence, but Adams has argued in substance—and Mr. Bove appears prepared to concede—that Adams should receive leniency for federal crimes solely because he occupies an important public position and can use that position to assist in the Administration’s policy priorities. If a criminal prosecution cannot be used to punish political activity, it likewise cannot be used to induce or coerce such activity. In your words, “the Department of Justice will not tolerate abuses of the criminal justice process, coercive behavior, or other forms of misconduct.” Dismissal of the indictment for no other reason than to influenceAdams’s mayoral decision-making would be all three.

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.

I attended a meeting on January 31, 2025, with Mr. Bove, Adams’s counsel, and members of my office. Adams’s 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. Mr. Bove admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting’s conclusion.

That’s an exceptionally disturbing revelation. At first glance, I was only assuming that Adams had demanded a dismissal for his cooperation on immigration in New York -and here is a former Scalia clerk turned prosecutor exposing a quid pro quo between the Trump DoJ and her defendant.

Second, Mr. Bove states that dismissal is warranted because of the conduct of this office’s former U.S. Attorney, Damian Williams, which, according to Mr. Bove’s memo, constituted weaponization of government.

But Bove stated in our meeting of January 31, 2025, the Department has no concerns about the conduct or integrity of the line prosecutors who investigated and charged this case, and it does not question the merits of the case itself. (No wonder Bove was mad that someone took notes at that meeting.) The investigation began before Mr. Williams took office, he did not manage the day-to-day investigation, and the charges in this case were recommended or approved by four experienced career prosecutors, the Chiefs of the SDNY Public Corruption Unit, and career prosecutors at the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department. Mr. Williams’s decision to ratify their recommendations does not taint the charging decision. And notably, Adams has not brought a vindictive or selective prosecution motion, nor would one be successful.

So you want me to be apolitical, but you’re granting Adams leniency in return for politics. There was even a quid pro quo in a meeting. Then you said Damien Williams weaponized this, but he wasn’t really involved, and you said in a meeting that everything was done properly. Not even Eric Adams has claimed this was weaponized. So far, both your arguments fail, Mr. Bove.

Then we get a bombshell:

Moreover, dismissing the case will amplify, rather than abate, concerns about weaponization of the Department. Despite Mr. Bove’s observation that the directive to dismiss the case has been reached without assessing the strength of the evidence against Adams, Adams has already seized on the memo to publicly assert that he is innocent and that the accusations against him were unsupported by the evidence and based only on “fanfare and sensational claims.” Confidence in the Department would best be restored by means well short of a dismissal. As you know, our office is prepared to seek a superseding indictment from a new grand jury under my leadership. 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.

Here, we learn for the first time what I had predicted a while back - that Adams was about to be indicted for a conspiracy to obstruct justice. That carries a max 20 year sentence, and as they say, the coverup is always worse than the crime. We also learn that Bove KNEW these charges were coming, and ordered the current charges to be dismissed anyhow. And while you might not think straw donors and bribery is bad, obstruction charges go right to the heart of the integrity of our justice system. The fact that Bove was willing to ignore this is unconscionable.

Not to mention, if Bove really thought Damien Williams tainted the case, he would ask for it to be dismissed WITH prejudice instead of positing that the charges could be brought again after the 2025 mayoral election. Sassoon says:

To the contrary, keeping Adams under the threat of prosecution while the Government determines its next steps is a recognized reason for the denial of a Rule 48(a) motion.

In the next section, Sassoon explains that while a defendant’s consent to dismiss charges without prejudice, so they can be brought again later, can help a court grant permission to dismiss - his consent here wouldn’t fly because of the flaws with Bove’s reasons to dismiss.

Seeking leave of court to dismiss a properly returned indictment based on Mr. Bove’s stated rationales is also likely to backfire by inviting skepticism and scrutiny from the court that will ultimately hinder the Department of Justice’s interests. In particular, the court is unlikely to acquiesce in using the criminal process to control the behavior of a political figure.

She then brings up the Mike Flynn dismissal, reminding Bove that the Flynn case is different because DoJ asked to dismiss it WITH prejudice: Here no one in the Department has expressed any doubts as to Adams’s guilt, and even in Flynn, the President ultimately chose to cut off the extended and embarrassing litigation over dismissal by granting a pardon.

In other words, if Bove asked to dismiss WITH prejudice so these charges couldn’t be held over Adams’ head, or if Trump pardoned Adams, that would save DoJ an embarrassing black eye for acting politically and failing to have a good reason to drop the case.

She concludes like this:

[T]he rationale given by Mr. Bove… is, as explained above, a bargain that a prosecutor should not make. Moreover, dismissing without prejudice and with the express option of again indicting Adams in the future creates obvious ethical problems, by implicitly threatening future prosecution if Adams’s cooperation with enforcing the immigration laws proves unsatisfactory to the Department. Finally, given the highly generalized accusations of weaponization, weighed against the strength of the evidence against Adams, a court will likely question whether that basis is pretextual.

I remain baffled by the rushed and superficial process by which this decision was reached, in seeming collaboration with Adams’s counsel and without my direct input on the ultimate stated rationales for dismissal. Mr. Bove admonished me to be mindful of my obligation to zealously defend the interests of the United States and to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the Administration. I hope you share my view that soliciting and considering the concerns of the U.S.Attorney overseeing the case serves rather than hinders that goal, and that we can find time to meet.

In the event you are unwilling to meet or to reconsider the directive in light of the problems raised by Mr. Bove’s memo, I am prepared to offer my resignation. It has been, and continues to be, my honor to serve as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.

You can read the entire letter here.

I know that this is a letter from a republican regarding charges against a democrat - but this is the kind of rule of law argument that should be applied in all cases, especially when Trump and Bove are trying to get Adams to drop sanctuary city status in exchange for dropped charges. Adams is corrupt AF and I’ll always wonder what Maya Wiley would have been like as the Mayor of New York, but I’m glad to see this kind of courage, and I wish it applied to people like Donald Trump.

~AG

U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York via AP