Introduction

On February 10, 2025, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove III, until recently a defense lawyer for now-President Donald J. Trump, issued a memo to the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle R. Sassoon.[1] Within, the Acting Deputy Attorney General directed Sassoon to move to dismiss without prejudice the then-pending charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.[2] The memo ordered this explicitly not on the strength or weakness of the case itself, but instead on the grounds that the ongoing case was interfering with the Mayor’s ability to cooperate with the new administration’s immigration priorities.[3] Two days later, all hell broke loose.

Sassoon Resigns

On February 12, 2025, Sassoon publicly resigned in a comprehensive eight-page letter addressed to Attorney General Pamela Jo Bondi.[4] Within, she made a strong legal and factual argument listing her objections to the order and reasoned why she could not comply in good conscience. The letter is well composed as a matter of legal writing craft and should be read in its entirety for that alone.

Within the first paragraph, she notes the Bove memo “raises serious concerns that render the contemplated dismissal inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good-faith arguments before the courts.”[5]

First, she argues that the government does not have a valid basis to seek dismissal. She brings to attention that Rule 48(a) requires leave of the court for dismissal. She refers to both internal Department of Justice guidance and case law precedent to point out that the court can refuse dismissal if “‘the defendant has consented [and] . . . the motion is prompted by considerations clearly contrary to the public interest.’”[6] She surfaces that the express motivation listed in the Bove memo on Adams’ inability to cooperate with immigration matters is impermissible under the Justice Manual and the Model Rules of Professional Conduct.[7] She also draws heavily on the writings of Justice Robert H. Jackson.[8]

Secondly and most disturbingly, she characterizes the Bove memo as an improper “quid pro quo.”[9] Footnote 1 of her letter reads as follows:

I attended a meeting on January 31, 2025, with Mr. Bove, Adams’s counsel, and members of my office. Adams’s attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed. Mr. Bove admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting’s conclusion.[10]

She also pushes back on accusations made in the Bove memo regarding improper conduct by one of the charging attorneys.[11] She carefully disarms accusations of weaponization of her office.

Finally and most relevantly, she points out that she cannot file the ordered motion under New York’s ethics rules, as she cannot in good faith submit the assertions within while complying with the duty of candor to the court.[12]

Sassoon had been chosen by the new administration to become Acting USA for the District less than a month prior to resigning.[13] Further, she was no liberal holdover, instead sporting genuine conservative bona fides including active membership in the Federalist Society and clerking for J. Harvie Wilkinson on the Fourth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. As recently as February 2, 2025, she had published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal criticizing President Joseph Biden’s broad pardons.[14] Not that political affiliation should matter when it comes to following one’s ethical and own moral obligations. This is merely to say, this was no mere political stunt. Here was a “serious, well trained member of the conservative legal establishment” following her duty.[15]

The Acting Deputy Attorney General responded with a letter of his own.[16] Within, he purported to accept Sassoon’s resignation (despite this properly being the Attorney General’s duty herself). He then placed the Assistant United States Attorneys principally responsible for the case on administrative leave, including one Hagan Scotten (see below).[17] He also martialed arguments attempting to rebut Sassoon’s concerns about the facts and the law.[18]

Scotten Resigns

In response, Scotten himself also went on to resign in his own public letter, this time addressed directly to Acting Deputy Attorney General Bove.[19]

While only one page to contrast with Sassoon’s eight, he acquits himself with equal aplomb. He completely agrees with her reasoning and disposes with the two justifications given in the Bove memo with admiral brevity:

In short, the first justification for the motion—that Damian Williams’s role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence, and pursued under four different U.S. attorneys is so weak as to be transparently pretextual. The second justification is worse. No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.[20]

He goes on to close the letter with a passage that drew praise for its effective composition and wit:

any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.[21]

Like his erstwhile supervisor Sassoon, Scotten comes with strong bona-fides of his own. A veteran, he earned two bronze stars as a troop commander in Iraq, before going on to attend Harvard Law School.[22] He then clerked for then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit, followed by clerking for Chief Justice John Roberts.[23] Neither of these prosecutors were opposing the new administration for partisan reasons.

Bacon and Sullivan Take the Bullet

As resignations mounted in New York, further resignations loomed in D.C. After Acting Deputy Attorney General Bove purportedly transferred government control of the case to the Public Integrity Unit, five other lawyers within said unit resigned rather than placing their signatures and imprimatur on the ordered filing.[24] These included the two lawyers leading the unit, Kevin O. Driscoll and John Keller, as well as three others within the unit.[25]

Friday morning, February 14, 2025 (Valentine’s Day), the Acting Deputy Attorney General summoned the remaining staff of the Public Integrity Unit and laid down an ultimatum: two attorneys would put their names on the motion, or the entire unit was fired.[26] They had an hour to make up their minds.[27] According to New York Times reporting, after thirty minutes, veteran career prosecutor Ed Sullivan volunteered.[28] Allegedly, he did so to protect the other lawyers of the unit and prevent disruption of a multitude of other cases the unit was pursuing.[29] Alongside him was Antoinette Bacon, known as Toni, a longtime prosecutor from Ohio.[30]

Later that very day, the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the case without prejudice under Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 48(a), captioning the filing as nolle prosequi.[31] Notably, while Sullivan and Bacon did e-sign the filing, it also has the wet signature of Acting Deputy Attorney General Bove. Further, the entire document is carefully drafted. Rather than the two prosecutors asserting facts outright, every assertion is couched and conditioned in terms of determinations made by the Deputy Attorney General.[32] It seems, even with the massive pressure Bove exerted on the unit, the two attorneys were unwilling to sign their name without any reservations to the assertions within. Perhaps this is an attempt to avoid sanctions under New York Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 3.3: Candor to the Court.[33] Only time will tell if this effort was successful, as likely even now opponents of the administration are preparing bar complaints for anyone whose name is on this filing. As of writing that following Monday evening, February 17, 2025, presiding Judge Dale Ho’s response is still forthcoming.

 

---

[1]  Memorandum from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, Emil Bove III, Acting Deputy Attorney General, https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/76308bc134b67d36/4cc46c59-full.pdf [https://perma.cc/H9GU-UB82].

[2]  Id.

[3]  Id.

[4]  Letter from Danielle R. Sassoon, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/24535586a908999e/3801d435-full.pdf [https://perma.cc/FF5S-RR4C].

[5]  Id.

[6]  Id. (quoting Rinaldi v. United States, 434 U.S. 22, 30 n.15 (1977)).

[7]  Id. (citing JM § 1-8.100; D.C. Bar Ethics Opinion 339; and ABA Criminal Justice Standard 3-1.6)).

[8]  Id. (citing Robert H. Jackson, The Federal Prosecutor, 24 J. Am. Jud. Soc’y 18 (1940)).

[9]  Id.

[10]  Sassoon, supra note 4, at n.1.

[11]  Id.

[12]  Id. (citing N.Y.R.P.C. 3.3 cmt. 2 (“A lawyer acting as an advocate in an adjudicative proceeding has an obligation to present the client’s case with persuasive force. Performance of that duty while maintaining confidences of the client, however, is qualified by the advocate’s duty of candor to the tribunal.”)).

[13]  Devlin Barrett, Benjamin Weiser, Glenn Thrush and William K. Rashbaum, Trump Moves Quickly to Install New Leaders at Key U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, N.Y. Times (Jan. 21, 2025),  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/us/politics/trump-us-attorneys-justice-department.html [https://perma.cc/TMW8-HEK8].

[14]  Danielle Sassoon, Biden’s Commutations Hurt Crime Victims, Wall St. J., Feb. 2, 2025, at A15.

[15]  Brad Wendel, Danielle Sassoon and Professional Identity, Legal Ethics Stuff (Feb. 13, 2025), https://bradwendel.substack.com/p/danielle-sassoon-and-professional?r=7j7t5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true [https://perma.cc/4ZBX-HCZ2].

[16]  Letter from Emile Bove III, Acting Deputy Attorney General, to Danielle Sassoon, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/7c71f04757006735/05b1f604-full.pdf [https://perma.cc/3AA5-RBAU].

[17]  Id.

[18]  Id.

[19]  Letter from Hagan Scotten, Assistant United States Attorney, to Emil Bove III, Acting Deputy Attorney General, https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/1ae30693bf1fa571/6139df80-full.pdf [https://perma.cc/CDP4-EYY8].

[20]  Id.

[21]  Id.

[22]  Hannah Rabinowitz, Kara Scannell and Evan Perez, Seventh prosecutor in Eric Adams case resigns and calls out Trump’s former lawyer in scathing letter, CNN (Feb. 14, 2025), https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/14/politics/justice-department-eric-adams-case-new-york-southern-district/index.html [https://perma.cc/4FJA-2KZ6].

[23]  Id.

[24]  William K. Rashbaum, Benjamin Weiser, Jonah E. Bromwich and Maggie Haberman, Order to Drop Adams Case Prompts Resignations in New York and Washington, N.Y. Times (Feb. 13, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/13/nyregion/danielle-sassoon-quit-eric-adams.html [https://perma.cc/3723-UKZC].

[25]  Id.

[26]  Devlin Barrett, Adam Goldman, Glenn Thrush and William K. Rashbaum, In Moving to Stop Adams Case, Career Lawyer Sought to Stave Off Deeper Crisis, N.Y. Times (Feb. 15, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/16/us/politics/justice-department-trump-eric-adams.html [https://perma.cc/8W67-M38B].

[27]  Id.

[28]  Id.

[29]  Id.

[30]  Id.

[31]  Nolle Prosequi, United States v. Adams, No. 24 Cr. 556 (S.D.N.Y. Feb 14, 2025) (available at https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.628916/gov.uscourts.nysd.628916.122.0.pdf) [https://perma.cc/YRE9-WHSR].

[32]  Id.

[33]  See N.Y.R.P.C. 3.3.