On Wednesday afternoon, New York City Mayor Eric Adams arrived at a federal courthouse in lower Manhattan for what may be the last hearing in his criminal case. US District Judge Dale Ho heard arguments from Adams’ lawyer and deputy US attorney Emil Bove over the Department of Justice’s request that the bribery and fraud charges against Adam be dismissed. The extraordinary development in Adams’ legal case led to the resignations of seven federal prosecutors and escalating calls for the mayor to resign or be removed from office.
Characteristically defiant, Adams seemed unperturbed as he strode into the wood-panelled courtroom. Ho had set the last-minute hearing just yesterday. Bove, the second highest-ranking official in Trump’s Department of Justice, had traveled to New York City to personally defend the motion. Ho, who was nominated to the bench by former President Joe Biden in 2023, acknowledged that his authority to deny the request was narrow and told the parties that he wanted to “proceed carefully.”
After being indicted on charges stemming in part from illegal campaign contributions last September, Adams has insisted that he was unfairly targeted for political reasons. Still, Adams publicly courted President Donald Trump after the November election and has shown a willingness to cooperate with the administration’s sweeping immigration enforcement plans. In his letter ordering prosecutors to drop the charges, Bove made the unusual argument that the case had “unduly restricted” the mayor’s ability to address illegal immigration and violent crime.
In a remarkable move, the acting head of the Manhattan US attorney’s office, Danielle Sassoon, resigned rather than heed orders to dismiss the case, claiming that Adams’ lawyers “repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo” during one meeting. The accusation that the charges are being dropped in exchange for Adams’ cooperation on Trump’s immigration priorities have been widely echoed by the mayor’s critics, including the city’s Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Comptroller Brad Lander (who is challenging Adams in the mayoral primary). The Department of Justice is requesting that the case be dropped without prejudice, meaning that the charges can be brought again—which has only fueled concerns that the Trump administration could use the threat of prosecution to exert influence over Adams.
Ho, at times deferential to Bove, prodded at the Department of Justice’s reasons for dismissing the case. Bove argued that dismissing the case is “a standard exercise of prosecutorial discretion” and that the judge had a straightforward decision to make.
Bove outlined the arguments made in the Department’s request for dismissal, claiming that the criminal inquiry into Adams amounted to an abuse of the criminal justice system. He said that the legal battle had meaningfully impeded Adams’ ability to make decisions around public safety. Adams’ lawyer, Alex Spiro, said that the mayor’s security clearance had been revoked because of the indictment and had prevented his access to sensitive information about “terroristic threats.”
Bove also argued that the prosecution was influencing the upcoming mayoral primary election, saying that Adams’ presence in court at that very moment amounted to “actual interference” in his ability to both govern and campaign.
At one point, Adams told the judge plainly that he had “not committed a crime.” Under oath, Adams said that he had not made any other agreements with the government in exchange for the dropping of his charges. Later, Bove seemed to refer to this answer when he insisted that the mayor had clearly established that there was no “quid pro quo.”
Ho brought up two amicus briefs that were submitted on Monday—one from three former US attorneys and the other from the watchdog group Common Cause—which argued against the case’s dismissal. Bove called the brief submitted by the former federal prosecutors “partisan noise.” The judge did not seem to come to a conclusion as to whether he would take them into consideration.
Ho did not make a ruling at the end of the hearing, saying that he did not want to “shoot from the hip” but would not allow the proceedings to drag on.
Even if Ho grants the dismissal, it will by no means put an end to the scrutiny on Adams’ relationship with the Trump administration. Yesterday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul met with a series of influential political figures as she weighs using her legal authority to remove the mayor. One of them was Rev. Al Sharpton, who told reporters that the governor would wait for Ho’s ruling on the dismissal.
When Adams left the courthouse, a small but lively group of protesters awaited him. One held a sign that read, “No Trump puppets running NYC.”
