Dismissal order based on merits of case, says lawyer for Mayor Eric Adams

Eric Adams’ lawyer on Wednesday defended the Department of Justice's order to drop the mayor’s public corruption case, acknowledging he met with federal officials beforehand about immigration enforcement but denying the order came in exchange for help deporting migrants.

At a news conference in midtown Manhattan, Alex Spiro, the mayor's lead defense attorney, said President Donald Trump played no role in the Justice Department's turnabout.

"That’s absurd," Spiro said in response to a reporter's question about whether dismissal of the case had hinged on Adams' cooperation rounding up migrants in New York.

"Of course not," he said.

On Monday, a letter surfaced from acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, the president’s former defense attorney, directing interim Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon to cease prosecution of the case "as soon as is practicable."

Sassoon has not yet responded publicly to the directive.

In September, Adams pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment charging him with the federal crimes of soliciting campaign donations from foreign nationals and hiding the contributions through straw donors. The mayor was also charged with using allegedly fake donors to garner millions of dollars in matching public funds from a city program. Prosecutors alleged Turkish officials and business people lavished the mayor with first-class upgrades on overseas air travel and plied him with luxury accommodations in exchange for municipal favors.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday evening, Attorney General Pam Bondi said she planned to “look into” why the case against Adams had not yet been dismissed.

“It was done at the directive of Emil (Bove) so that case should be dropped,” Bondi said.

The trial is set for April, two months before the Democratic primary for mayor. If convicted, Adams could face a maximum punishment of 45 years in prison.

After border states started sending migrants to New York and the city’s shelters became overwhelmed, Adams, like Trump before him, became a vocal critic of the Biden administration’s immigration policy.

In his letter ordering the dismissal, Bove said he had not reviewed the merits of the case, but it has "restricted Mayor Adams' ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime."

Deporting people in the United States illegally has been a priority so far in Trump’s second term.

In October, at a charity dinner attended by both Adams and Trump,  the then-presidential candidate expressed solidarity with the mayor, saying, "We were persecuted, Eric. I was persecuted, and so are you, Eric."

After Trump’s November victory, Adams flew to Mar-a-Lago to meet with the president-elect.

It was the motions he filed in court, Spiro said at the news conference, that convinced the newly appointed officials in the U.S. Attorney General’s Office to halt the case.

"Our writings got the attention of the Department of Justice, and they granted a meeting," he said. "The merits of the case, along with the reasons for not going forward, were all part of the position that we took, and the Department of Justice ultimately did the right thing and is ordering this case to not proceed."

With Matthew Chayes and AP