A federal judge on Wednesday is expected to scrutinize the Trump administration’s extraordinary attempt to abandon corruption charges against New York City’s mayor, a decision that shook the legal community and led to calls for the mayor’s resignation.
The judge, Dale E. Ho, ordered the Washington prosecutors who sought a dismissal of the case last week to appear in a Manhattan courtroom to address the Justice Department’s effort to shut down the case, just months before the mayor, Eric Adams, was scheduled to go to trial.
Last week, the acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove III, directed prosecutors to seek an end to Mayor Adams’s prosecution. Mr. Bove said explicitly that his directive was based not on the case’s legal merits. The case, he said, was detracting from the mayor’s ability to aid President Trump’s program of mass deportation.
At least seven prosecutors resigned rather than obey, including Danielle R. Sassoon, the interim head of the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan.
In a two-page order on Tuesday, Judge Ho told prosecutors and Mayor Adams’s lawyers to be prepared to address, among other things, the reason the government was seeking to throw out the case and “the procedure for resolution” of its request. That phrasing, legal experts said, suggested that the judge was unlikely to rubber-stamp the government’s effort.
The judge acknowledged that a federal rule says the executive branch is best suited to decide whether to drop a prosecution and that a judge should not meddle unless a dismissal is “clearly contrary to manifest public interest.”
But he seemed prepared to investigate that public-interest question.
Ms. Sassoon accused Mr. Adams of offering to use his position to aid President Trump’s immigration agenda in exchange for a dismissal of his case. She said in a letter to the U.S. attorney general that the arrangement “amounted to a quid pro quo.”
“Because I am confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged, I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations,” Ms. Sassoon wrote.
She said she understood her duty to entail prosecuting “a validly returned indictment regardless whether its dismissal would be politically advantageous, to the defendant or to those who appointed me.”
Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Mayor Adams, has strongly denied that any deal was offered. In a letter to Judge Ho on Tuesday, Mr. Spiro wrote: “There was no quid pro quo. Period.”
He added, though, that he had informed Mr. Bove at a January meeting that “the indictment and upcoming trial” — scheduled for April — “were impeding Mayor Adams in myriad ways, including as to enforcement of federal immigration laws.”
In his own letter, Mr. Bove also denied a deal and said that the prosecution of Mr. Adams was an example of the “weaponization of law enforcement.” Mr. Adams has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and bribery, among other crimes.
Ms. Sassoon’s resignation was followed last week by that of six other prosecutors in Manhattan and Washington. On Friday, Mr. Bove signed the necessary motion himself, along with two other Washington prosecutors, Ed Sullivan and Antoinette Bacon.
But the resignations caused an outcry, and raised questions about whether Mr. Trump’s political alliances would govern the department’s legal decisions.
Under the law, prosecutors cannot dismiss their own cases; a judge must agree. Judges have a narrowly defined ability to refuse such requests outright, but may question prosecutors’ reasoning.
The hearing on Wednesday comes as Judge Ho faces a flurry of requests that he investigate the government’s actions. Three former U.S. attorneys asked the judge in a filing on Monday to conduct an extensive inquiry into whether the motion was a pretext for securing the mayor’s help on immigration.
The former U.S. attorneys are John S. Martin Jr., who served in the Southern District of New York; Deirdre M. Daly, who served in Connecticut; and Robert J. Cleary, who served in New Jersey. The three were all appointed by Democratic presidents.
In their brief, submitted by lawyers with the pro bono firm Free and Fair Litigation Group, they listed more than a dozen questions that they said Judge Ho needed answered before deciding on the department’s request to drop the case “without prejudice” — meaning that the Trump administration could reinstate the charges in the future.
That condition — and Ms. Sassoon’s accusations more generally — have caused an uproar among critics of the mayor, who argue that Mr. Adams is now beholden to Mr. Trump and cannot serve the city. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove the mayor from office, met on Tuesday with city officials and others to discuss whether she should take such action.
“The public furor that has arisen during the past week raises concerns about respect for the rule of law and the division of power between the executive and judicial branches of government in our nation,” lawyers for the former U.S. attorneys wrote. “The best way to address these concerns is to conduct an inquiry that will allow the court — and ultimately the public — to determine where the interests of justice may lie.”
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