Manhattan federal judge delays decision on dropping criminal charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams

The Manhattan federal court judge presiding over the Eric Adams public corruption case delayed dismissing the charges against the New York City mayor on Wednesday, vowing "not to shoot from the hip" at an afternoon hearing over whether to grant the Department of Justice request to drop the case.

U.S. District Judge Dale Ho, taking a deliberative tone, told the court that he would "consider everything appropriate and not consider anything inappropriate and make a reasoned decision that is mindful of my role, which I understand here is quite narrow."

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, who is currently in the No. 2 position at the Justice Department, set off a political and legal firestorm in the mayor’s office and the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office on Feb. 10 when he ordered prosecutors to drop the case because he said it interfered with national security and immigration policy outlined by President Donald Trump. Adams’ security clearance had been canceled, his lawyer said, hobbling his ability to communicate with federal authorities regarding "terroristic threats" and other sensitive information.

During the hearing, the judge asked Adams under oath if he had been promised anything in exchange for his consent in dropping the case or if he had been threatened by the Justice Department to go along with the deal.

"No, your honor," the mayor said.

Ho also asked Adams if he understood that he could be charged again.

"Yes, I understand that, Judge," the mayor said. "I have not committed a crime and I don't see them bringing it back. I'm not afraid of that."

Before a packed courtroom, with Bove seated on one side and the mayor and his lawyers on the other, the judge acknowledged that he had limited authority to deny the Justice Department’s Valentine’s Day motion to end the case against the mayor.

"I think everyone would agree that this is a somewhat unusual motion," Ho said.

The judge sought to hear directly from the mayor that he understood that under the terms of the agreement he could be charged again for the same charges at a later date.

Legal experts and former prosecutors said that this amounts to the Trump administration "extorting" Adams to carry out the president’s immigration crackdown or face continued legal jeopardy.

Bove made it clear that he did not consider the facts or the merits of the case against Adams and lauded the prosecutors involved in the case. He also said that the charges would be reviewed in the future and could be taken up against the mayor again at a later date.

The deputy attorney general, who acted as the president’s defense attorney during the hush money trial last year, said that he also sought dismissal to comply with Executive Order 14147, entitled "Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government."

As an extension of that, Bove said, the prosecution amounts to election interference in that it interferes with Adams’ ability to seek reelection.

The judge questioned if the same rationale would apply to any other elected official like the mayor of a border town or an unelected candidate seeking public office.

"What I have emphasized here ... is national security concerns and immigration concerns," Bove said.

Days after Bove ordered interim U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon to drop the case, she refused and resigned in protest, saying that she could not in good faith drop a case when she believed that Adams had broken the law.

The federal prosecutor, who once clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, said that during a meeting in Justice Department headquarters with Adams' lawyers and Bove they outlined a deal to drop the case in exchange for the mayor's cooperation with Trump's immigration enforcement policies.

Six other Justice Department officials in Washington, D.C., and New York City resigned rather than carry out the order.

This week, four out of eight deputy mayors in the Adams administration resigned over their unease with the alleged quid pro quo between the mayor and the president.

Adams' defense lawyer, Alex Spiro, has not denied that the mayor received lavish hotel accommodations and first-class airplane upgrades from Turkish business people and a public official. Nor has he refuted that Adams intervened on behalf of the Turkish government to open the country’s newly constructed midtown consulate in 2021 ahead of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit. Spiro has derisively referred to the case as the "airplane upgrade corruption case." He maintains that these gifts and favors do not meet the legal definition of bribery as defined by the U.S. Supreme Court, but instead amount to gratuities.

Adams was also charged with hiding the source of the foreign donations through straw donors and defrauding the city's matching campaign funds system out of millions of dollars in public money.

Bove said that he believed that former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams had brought the case to further his political ambitions. Soon after he left office, Williams published a highly polished website that outlined his accomplishments, public speaking engagements and prominently featured photos of his wife and two sons. The former prosecutor also wrote an opinion column charging that the city suffered from a crisis of unethical leadership without specifically naming Adams.

Over the weekend, a group of former federal prosecutors from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and a former Manhattan federal judge asked Judge Ho, a former ACLU lawyer, to hold an inquiry into the Justice Department's rationale, charging it was the D.C. headquarters that had politicized the case.

Bove urged the judge to grant the dismissal as soon as possible, calling the case "an abuse of the criminal justice process."

The judge ended the hearing promising to consider its testimony and provide a ruling soon.

"It's not in anyone's interest for this to drag on," Ho said.