Cnn
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Call that the massacre on Thursday afternoon.
The Ministry of Justice is in crisis after the superb resignation of the main prosecutor in Manhattan and five other senior officials for the DOJ’s decision to stop the prosecution of the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, on corruption accusations.
It took less than a month for Donald Trump’s new DOJ to be engulfed by controversy that the overeats concern the president’s political objectives compromise the application of the law.
The drama – which recalls the massacre of Saturday evening of the renown of Watergate – represents the deepest effort to date by the officials of the Ministry of Justice to repel the management of the Doj of Trump, who is responsible for putting an end to The “armaments” of justice, but that criticism fear is perpetuated.
Danielle Sassoon, who resigned from the acting American lawyer from the South District of New York, said amazing allegations of political interference in a letter to the new Attorney General Pam Bondi. And she said that the lawyers of the mayor of New York had repeatedly urged a consideration under which Adams would help the hard -on -line immigration policy if the case was abandoned.
Sassoon wrote that the doj’s order to reject the case against the Democratic mayor was “incompatible with my abilities and my duty to pursue federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance the arguments of good faith before the courts ”.
An Adams lawyer said Thursday that the idea that there was quid pro quo was “a total lie” and said that the mayor’s legal team had been invited to prosecutors if the case had An impact on national security and the application of immigration “and we really answered it.” did. ”
The resignation of Sassoon, at first glance, resembles a courageous act of a prosecutor sacrificing his promising career to thwart an apparent attempt to politicize justice.
His complaints add a new important context to a previous service note from the Ministry of Justice, which argued that the accusation “has unduly restricted the capacity of the mayor Adams to devote attention and resources to illegal immigration and to violent crimes “which said that Rose under the Biden administration.
In itself, this note was extraordinary because it suggested that the accusation was interrupted because it was in conflict with the president’s political priorities. The memo, for example, said that the decision to delete the case had been concluded without assessing the “force of evidence or the legal theories on which the case is founded”.
Sassoon’s complaints have met with an abrupt letter from Emil Bove, the assistant prosecutor general general, who is a former member of the Trump personal legal team. He accused him of continuing to continue “a prosecution with political motivation despite an express investigation to reject the case”.
Adams, which faces a re -election this fall, was charged in September for accusations linked to corruption, wire fraud, conspiracy and solicitation of contributions from the campaign of foreign nationals in exchange for political favors.
He denied all the reprehensible acts and frequently declared that the accusation was a politically motivated reimbursement for his criticism of the failure of the Biden administration to stem the arrivals of migrants in New York – an assertion that the Doj Trump adopted .
The processing by the Adams administration seems to show that what Trump says is an effort to purge “the armament” of justice is already substituting political justifications rather than legal for prosecutor’s decisions.
“I am absolutely for the deinforcement of the Ministry of Justice,” said Thomas Dupree, a former deputy prosecutor general, who is also a conservative, told Kaitlan Collins de CNN. “But the way you disapprint the Ministry of Justice is to withdraw the policy from the equation.” Dupree said that the letters suggested that “the administration expressly infused a law enforcement with political considerations”.
The controversy has thrown an immediate doubt about the future of the Doj’s attempt to reject the case against Adams, because the developments are likely to bring to the attention of Judge Dale Ho, who must sign.
Sassoon resigned before Bove could act on her plan to dismiss her, said two people familiar with the case.
But it will be difficult for the Doj to argue that Sassoon is a liberal criticism of the deep state of Trump since it has impeccable conservative references and has been only recently chosen to direct the SDNY as an actor by the president. She, for example, was used for the late Judge of the Supreme Court Antonin Scalia. In her letter, she said that the conservative icon was one of the mentors who taught her to respect the rule of law and advance the public good.
Trump denied having ordered the Ministry of Justice to reject the indictment against Adams, a democrat who has become an eminent criticism of former president Joe Biden and has established a personal relationship with the current president, who has publicly declared that they were both victims of politicized justice.
“No, I didn’t do it,” Trump told Kevin Liptak from CNN in the oval office. “I don’t know about it. I didn’t do it. A few moments later, Trump turned to Liptak without having come and added: “That the American lawyer was dismissed, I do not know if he resigned, but that the American lawyer was dismissed.”
But the astonishing exchange of letters and the language of blisters used by Bove and Sassoon mean that the case of Adams can have the potential to degenerate into a major scandal at the start of the new administration.
“We are more unusual here, this is completely unprecedented,” CNN’s legal analyst told Anderson Cooper, who worked in SDNY. “We have never seen anything like it.”
In his letter, Sassoon argued that the Doj had no valid reason to reject the case; said the evidence against Adams was solid; And warned that the dismissal “would amplify, rather than reducing”, concerns about the armament of the department “.
She recalled that she recently took an oath in which she has sworn to fulfill the functions of her office – and said that pleading for the rejection of the Adams case in court would be in conflict with this promise.
In one of the most notable sentences of his letter to Bondi, Sassoon criticizes the arguments of Bove according to which the Adams affair should be rejected in exchange for its aid in the application of federal immigration laws. She said that the mayor had argued, and Bove apparently agreed that “Adams should receive leniency for federal crimes only because he occupies an important public position and can use this position to help the political priorities of the administration . ”
This is alarming because the establishment of such a principle could allow civil servants to escape allegations of corruption by dint of their position – a scenario which would risk destroying public confidence in political and legal institutions.
Later in his letter, Sassoon continued the argument on the political armament of justice, writing: “I understand my duty as a prosecutor to signify the application of the law in an impartial manner, and this includes the prosecution of ‘A validly returned accusation act, regardless of his politically advantageous dismissal, to the accused or to those who have appointed me. »»
Bove has now turned to the public integrity section at the headquarters of the Ministry of Justice to manage the dismissal, according to two people familiar with the case. This step seems to have triggered the resignations of Kevin Driscoll, the best career prosecutor in the public integrity section, and John Keller, the actor’s actor. No less than three additional public integrity prosecutors also suffered their resignation later Thursday, according to two sources.
Cascade departures at the Ministry of Justice recalled the “massacre on Saturday evening”, when several prosecutors and officials resigned following the refusal of the Special Prosecutor Archibal Cox to honor the request of President Richard Nixon to drop a summons For the White House bands during the Watergate scandal in 1973.
“There are echoes of the worst chapter in recent American history with regard to the Ministry of Justice,” said Ryan Goodman, professor at the New York University School of Law on CNN on Thursday.
“It is incredible, it is here in writing, and I am sure that the federal judges through the country read these letters and are deeply disturbed on what is happening at the highest levels of the Ministry of Justice because it seems so corrupt.”
“Integrity and courage”
What is unusual in this case is that the signs of political armament of the DoJ can be seen in the official communications of the department itself.
For example, Bove tells Sassoon that she has lost sight of her oath because she suggested that she retains, as he wrote: “The discretionary power of interpreting the Constitution in a way incompatible with politicians a democratically elected president and a confirmed attorney general in the Senate. “”
However, since the Watergate scandal, the DoJ has generally sought to maintain a distance from the White House to avoid the perceptions of political prejudices. The duty of a prosecutor is towards the constitution and the neutral administration of justice, not on the policies of a president.
Harry Sandick, a former American assistant prosecutor to SDNY, said that Sassoon’s “incredible” letter recalled questions that the office candidates are asked about the need to be honest with the court.
He said to Burnett, “She said,” I cannot enter the court and say (the judge) the things you would like me to tell him. It would be contrary to ethics, it could be incompatible with my prosecutor’s obligations. »»