Washington — Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, said Sunday that the Justice Department made a “deeply corrupt bargain” with its move to drop charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
“This is an outrageous violation of the rules of prosecutors and an offense against due process, and a very dangerous first move for the Department of Justice to be making under the Trump people,” Raskin said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Last week, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove sent a memo that instructed prosecutors in Manhattan to abandon the indictment that charged Adams with bribery, conspiracy and campaign finance violations, which he denied. Bove justified the decision by saying the case “has unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime.” He also alleged that the prosecution was politically motivated due to Adams’ criticism of the Biden administration.
The directive prompted a revolt at the Justice Department that burst into public view when Danielle Sassoon, the acting head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York, resigned in protest rather than file a motion seeking to drop the case. She was soon joined by other top Justice Department officials. Different prosecutors ultimately filed a motion late Friday to abandon the charges.
Sassoon alleged in her resignation letter that the Justice Department proposed dismissing the charges against Adams in return for his assistance in enforcing the federal immigration laws. Adams’ attorney denied that he offered to help enact the president’s deportation agenda in exchange for having his case dropped, saying the mayor’s team “offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us.” In response to Sassoon’s resignation, Bove also denied there was any quid pro quo, writing in a letter that Sassoon’s allegation was “false.”
On Sunday, Raskin said the Justice Department had to “try to coerce their own workers” to file the motion to drop the case, adding that “they were told to kill it for political reasons” although they said nothing had changed in the facts of the case.
“The Justice Department is at war with its own attorneys, its own prosecutors, and the whole episode is just saturated with corruption,” Raskin continued.
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Adams, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, was set to stand trial in April, and faced up to 45 years in prison if convicted. He and Mr. Trump met in Florida before the president was sworn in last month.
Raskin, who taught constitutional law for decades, noted that the back and forth is “not over yet.” He noted that Judge Dale Ho, who is overseeing the case, doesn’t have to agree to withdraw the charges.
“He may not,” Raskin said. “He may go ahead and try to appoint another prosecutor to go ahead and go through with the indictment that was handed down by a grand jury.”
The Maryland Democrat said the fact that Adams is a member of his party is “neither here nor there for me.” He said he’s “against corruption across the board,” while accusing the president of seeking to “attract all of the corrupt politicians in America to his side.”
