Danielle Sassoon, assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, exits court in New York, US, on Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023.
Stephanie Keith | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A top federal prosecutor in New York and two senior Department of Justice officials resigned Thursday after refusing a DOJ order to dismiss the pending criminal case against Mayor Eric Adams.
Emil Bove, a high-ranking DOJ official, said Thursday that the department would take over the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and file a motion in Manhattan federal court to dismiss the charges against Adams.
Danielle Sassoon, the acting SDNY U.S. Attorney, was the first to refuse Bove’s order to toss the case against Adams, who was indicted last fall and soon after sought to curry favor with President Donald Trump.
Sassoon, 38, told Bove that the prosecution team responsible for Adams’ case agreed with her decision, according to a scathing letter he sent her Thursday, which NBC News obtained.
Bove in that letter said the prosecutors on that team have been placed on administrative leave pending investigations by Attorney General Pam Bondi and the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility, to determine if they should be fired or disciplined.
After Sassoon refused to dismiss the case Thursday, the matter was reassigned to John Keller, the acting head of the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, who also refused to dismiss the case and then quit, NBC reported.
The Public Integrity Section oversees cases involving bribery of public officials.
Acting DOJ criminal division chief Kevin Driscoll also resigned Thursday after refusing to accept the Adams case.
Acting Chief of the Public Integrity Section John D. Keller
Source: Department of Justice
The criminal case against Adams has not been dismissed as of Thursday afternoon.
Adams was indicted in September by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on charges related to alleged bribery, fraud and a decade-long campaign contribution scheme.
On Monday, Bove, who is a former criminal defense lawyer for Trump, ordered Sassoon to dismiss the case against Adams.
Bove’s scathing letter Thursday to Sassoon acknowledged her resignation and her refusal to follow his order.
“This decision is based on your choice to continue pursuing a politically motivated prosecution despite an express instruction to dismiss the case,” Bove wrote in the letter.
“You lost sight of the oath that you took when you started at the Department of Justice by suggesting that you retain discretion to interpret the Constitution in a manner inconsistent with the policies of a democratically elected President and a Senate-confirmed Attorney General,” Bove wrote.
Sassoon told SDNY staff in an email, “Moments ago, I submitted my resignation to the attorney general.”
“As I told her, it has been my greatest honor to represent the United States and to pursue justice as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. It has been a privilege to be your colleague, and I will be watching with pride as you continue your service to the United States.”
Sassoon had been the lead prosecutor at the fraud and conspiracy trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, the former head of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Bankman-Fried was sentenced last March to 25 years in prison.
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