Three senior officials from the US Ministry of Justice, including the main federal prosecutor of Manhattan, resigned Thursday rather than complying with an order for the rejection of corruption accusations against the mayor of New York, according to a service note from the Ministry of Internal justice seen by Reuters and people familiar with the case.
Departures mark a sign of resistance from officials from the Ministry of Career justice to the efforts of US President Donald Trump to revise the agency to end what he calls his arming against political opponents. Critics say that Trump’s changes threaten to submit criminal prosecution to political whims.
The American Manhattan lawyer Danielle Sassoon, the recent choice of the Trump administration to temporarily direct the office to pursue the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, resigned from her post on Thursday, according to the memorandum of the deputy prosecutor Emil Bove , a named of Trump.
Bove had ordered Sassoon to reject the case on Monday, in what legal experts qualified the efforts of Trump administration officials to take control of the office of a prosecutor who has long tarted independence politics. Adams, a democrat, has marked links with Trump, a republican.
In his note on Thursday, Bove wrote that Sassoon had refused to comply with what he called the conclusion of his office that the case against Adams was equivalent to the “armament” of the judicial system.
“Your office does not have the power to challenge the conclusion of armament,” wrote Bove, the former lawyer for the personal criminal defense of Trump. “The Ministry of Justice will not tolerate insubordination.”
Bove wrote that the two main prosecutors of the Adams case trial would be placed on leave. He also said that his office would resume the Adams affair and move to reject him, although no official rejection request has yet been filed on Thursday afternoon.
A spokesperson for the South New York District (SDNY) confirmed Sassoon’s resignation. He was not immediately clear that would take his place.
According to a person informed of the issue, after Sassoon refused to comply with the directive to reject the case, the Trump administration ordered John Keller, the actor of the public corruption unit of the Ministry of Justice, to do so.
Keller also resigned on Thursday, said two people familiar with the case. Kevin Driscoll, a senior official of the department’s criminal division, also resigned, said one of the people.
An official of the Ministry of Justice confirmed resignations.
The mayor of New York, and the former NYPD officer, Eric Adams, were charged with five federal accusations linked to the allegations he has taken from the illegal contributions and bribes of foreign nationals in exchange for favors.
Comparisons with “Saturday evening massacre”
Since Trump began his second mandate at the White House on January 20, the new administration dismissed more than a dozen prosecutors who pursued criminal accusations against Trump in two cases filed in 2023, and ended certain officials of the FBI and prosecutors who pursued business against his supporters who stormed the American Capitol on January 6, 2021 to try to prevent the Congress from certifying its electoral loss.
The American prosecutor General Pam Bondi, in his first day of work last week, issued a directive indicating that the lawyers of the Ministry of Justice who refuse to appear before the court or signature would be disciplined and possibly dismissed.
Resignations have triggered comparisons of legal experts at “Saturday Night Massacre” in 1973When senior officials from the Ministry of Justice resigned after refusing the order of the president of the time, Richard Nixon, to dismiss the special council investigating 1972 by republican agents of the Democratic seat of the Watergate complex in Washington.
Juliet Sorensen, a former federal prosecutor who teaches the Loyola University Chicago School of Law, also declared that the resignations recalled Trump’s decision in his first mandate to dismiss the director of the FBI, James Comey, to prevent the office of Investigate his 2016 presidential campaign.
“In these two historical cases, as for today’s events, you have the director general of the United States who exerts extreme political pressure because of their high post against non-political staff of the Ministry of Justice “Said Sorensen.
Half a dozen former SDNY prosecutors told Reuters this week that the order of Bove, himself a former SDNY prosecutor, had raised questions about the question of whether the office can remain independent of pressure policy during Trump’s second term.
Last September, Sassoon’s predecessor, Damian Williams – A named Biden – accused Adams of having accepted bribes of Turkish officials.
Adams pleaded not guilty and argued that the charges had been brought as reprisals for his criticism of the immigration policies of Biden. Trump, whose two federal affairs were rejected after his electoral victory but who was sentenced to distinct accusations at the state level, said his sympathy for Adams. Addressing journalists in the oval office Thursday, Trump said that he had not asked that the Ministry of Justice would drop the case against Adams.
