Judge Dale E. Ho, who on Wednesday will hold a hearing in the foundering corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams of New York, is facing a storm of demands that he look deeply into the federal government’s reasons for seeking to drop the prosecution.
On Monday night, three former U.S. attorneys from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut filed a brief asking the judge to conduct an extensive inquiry into whether the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the Adams case was in the public interest or merely a pretext for securing the mayor’s cooperation with the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies.
Earlier in the day, Common Cause, the good-government advocacy group, asked the judge to deny the Justice Department’s motion, which it called part of a “corrupt quid pro quo bargain.” The organization asked the judge to consider appointing an independent special prosecutor to continue the case.
And the New York City Bar Association, with more than 20,000 lawyers as members, said in a statement that the order by a top Justice Department official, Emil Bove III, “cuts to the heart of the rule of law” and asked for a “searching inquiry” into the facts.
On Tuesday morning, Judge Ho set a hearing for 2 p.m. Wednesday in Manhattan federal court to discuss the reasons for the government’s motion and the procedure for resolving it.
The judge, in a two-page order, offered no hint about his position and made it clear that under a federal rule, the executive branch was “the first and presumptively the best judge” of whether to drop a prosecution.
But he also emphasized the court’s independent responsibility. The government’s discretion, he wrote, “should not be judicially disturbed unless clearly contrary to manifest public interest.”
The legal and political crisis encompasses both the Justice Department and New York’s City Hall, calling into question Mr. Adams’s future as well as the independence and probity of federal prosecutions.
Mr. Adams, a Democrat, was indicted last year on five counts, including bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. He pleaded not guilty and was scheduled for trial in April. But last week, Mr. Bove caused a cascade of resignations as prosecutors in Manhattan and Washington refused to comply with his order, including Danielle R. Sassoon, who stepped down as the interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan. On Friday, Mr. Bove himself signed a formal request that Judge Ho will now consider.
The law gives judges scant ability to refuse a prosecutor’s request to drop criminal charges. But Mr. Adams’s case may be an exception.
In their brief, the former U.S. attorneys listed more than a dozen questions they said needed to be answered before Judge Ho could decide whether to approve the department’s request to dismiss the case “without prejudice.” With that outcome, the Trump administration could reinstate the charges.
“What is at stake here is far more than an internal prosecutorial dispute about an individual case,” the former U.S. attorneys wrote. “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.”
The former top prosecutors who filed the brief were John S. Martin Jr., who served in the Southern District of New York; Robert J. Cleary, who served in New Jersey; and Deirdre M. Daly, who served in Connecticut.
The filing was made by lawyers with the pro bono firm Free and Fair Litigation Group; they asked Judge Ho to accept the submission as a “friend of the court” brief. In it, they argue in support of his authority to conduct a factual inquiry into the Justice Department’s actions.
One of the lawyers who filed the brief, Mark Pomerantz, a former chief of the Southern District’s criminal division, said the brief was unusual in arguing that the judge should deny the government’s dismissal request because the parties in the case — the Justice Department and Mr. Adams — were in agreement that the prosecution should end.
“We would like to represent a point of view that none of the parties have an interest in presenting to the court,” Mr. Pomerantz said.
Nick Akerman, the lawyer for Common Cause, also asked that his organization be heard as a friend of the court, noting that because the government had agreed with Mr. Adams to dismiss the indictment, no one was representing the public before the judge.
He asked that Judge Ho consider the appointment of an independent prosecutor, as State Senator Zellnor Myrie, a Democrat who is running for mayor, did last week. It is a remedy that is unusual but plausible, said Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert at New York University School of Law.
Professor Gillers said that if Judge Ho ordered the government to proceed with the case and it refused, the judge might then explore the possibility of appointing a special prosecutor.
“He’d be vindicating the interest of the grand jury and the court itself in not letting the case die,” Professor Gillers said.
The New York City Bar Association’s statement said that Mr. Bove’s request, which would allow the Trump administration to reinstate the charges against Mr. Adams, was “expressly political.”
“The policy choices of the government of New York City cannot be dependent on or appear to be dependent on the decision of the Justice Department to prosecute or withhold prosecution of corruption charges against the mayor,” the statement said.
Ms. Sassoon, the former interim U.S. attorney, characterized Mr. Bove’s order to seek an end to the prosecution as a quid pro quo — a dropping of charges in exchange for the mayor’s support in President Trump’s political goal of mass deportations.
“I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations,” Ms. Sassoon wrote in a letter to the U.S. attorney general, Pam Bondi.
Ms. Sassoon said in the letter that prosecutors had been prepared to bring an additional charge that would accuse the mayor of destroying evidence and instructing others to do the same.
A lawyer for Mr. Adams, Alex Spiro, called that a false claim. He said that if prosecutors had proof that the mayor had destroyed evidence, “they would have brought those charges — as they continually threatened to do.”
Mr. Spiro, in a letter to Judge Ho on Tuesday morning, disputed Ms. Sassoon’s suggestion that there had been a deal between the government and Mr. Adams.
“There was no quid pro quo. Period,” Mr. Spiro wrote.
He made the assertion even though Mr. Trump’s border czar, Thomas Homan, last week promised in a television appearance to force the mayor to comply with “the agreement.”
Ms. Sassoon resigned rather than obey, and at least six other prosecutors in New York and Washington did the same.
Mr. Bove, whose order specified that his decision to dismiss the case had nothing to do with its legal strengths, finally signed the motion himself, along with two other Washington prosecutors, Edward Sullivan and Antoinette T. Bacon.
Late Monday night, Justice Connection, an organization that supports Justice Department employees facing “unprecedented attacks on their employment, their integrity, their well-being and their safety,” made public an open letter praising prosecutors in New York and Washington who resigned or whose jobs were threatened.
It was signed by more than 850 former federal prosecutors and was addressed to their counterparts still in the department. Among the signers was Jack Smith, the special counsel who carried out two federal criminal investigations of Mr. Trump.
“You have responded to ethical challenges of a type no public servant should ever be forced to confront with principle and conviction,” the Justice Connection’s letter said, adding that current prosecutors would face more challenges ahead.
“Generations of former federal prosecutors are watching with pride and admiration and stand ready to support you in this honorable pursuit,” the letter said.