A court-appointed counsel tasked with reviewing the Trump Justice Department’s motion to dismiss Mayor Eric Adams’ criminal indictment has formally recommended that the presiding judge move to dismiss it in its entirety without the prospect of it being revived.
REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
A court-appointed counsel tasked with reviewing the Trump Justice Department’s motion to dismiss Mayor Eric Adams’ criminal indictment has formally recommended that the presiding judge move to end the case permanently.
Paul Clement issued his decision in a 30-page report to U.S. District Judge Dale Ho of the Southern District of New York filed late Friday afternoon. Ho asked Clement last month to review the Justice Department’s request to dismiss the five-count criminal campaign fraud indictment; the prosecution argued that Adams’ impending trial would limit his ability to cooperate with the Trump administration in its immigration crackdown.
However, the federal government’s motion to dismiss the case against Mayor Adams “without prejudice” would give prosecutors the authority to bring the case back at any time. That concerns observers who feared that Mayor Adams would be coerced into compliance with the Trump administration for fear of the case being brought back at some point.
In his March 7 report, Clement argued that supporting the Adams defense team’s motion to dismiss Adams’ indictment “with prejudice” — effectively killing the case — is the right move for Judge Ho to make, arguing that the prosecution’s “without prejudice” caveat “creates a palpable sense that the prosecution … could be renewed, a prospect that hangs like the proverbial Sword of Damocles over the accused.”
“Such an ongoing prospect of re-indictment is particularly problematic when it comes to the sensitive task of prosecuting public officials,” Clement wrote in his report. “There is an inherent risk that once an indictment has been procured, the prospect of re-indictment could create the appearance, if not the reality, that the actions of a public official are being driven by concerns about staying in the good graces of the federal executive, rather than the best interests of his constituents.”
Clement noted that dismissing the charges against Adams “with prejudice ” would also help preserve “another important separation-of-powers virtue—namely, accountability.”
A Feb. 12 letter from then-acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon to US Attorney General Pam Bondi included a claim that Adams’ attorney had requested what she called a “quid pro quo”: cooperation with the Trump administration in exchange having the indictment dismissed. Sassoon resigned the next day, along with several other federal prosecutors, who refused to carry out the Justice Department’s order to dismiss the indictment, which came from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove.
Adams’ defense team has denied any notion of a quid pro quo, and the mayor himself testified under oath at a Feb. 19 hearing that no such deal was made and that he was not being coerced into cooperation.
Even so, the very fear of a potential, indirect quid pro quo between Mayor Adams, who leads what he often calls a “city of immigrants,” and President Trump’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants spurred renewed calls for the mayor to step down from office or be removed by Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Within days, four deputy mayors had resigned from Adams’ administration over concerns about the case. Hochul, after consulting with city leaders, opted not to remove the mayor “at this time,” but called for new legislative guardrails to check his authority.
Ho will hold another hearing on the case March 14, at which time he may choose to follow Clement’s recommendation of dismissal “with prejudice.”
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