On The Sudden End Of The Eric Adams Prosecution

February 17, 2025 Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian 

Back in September, DOJ prosecutors in the Southern District of New York indicted Mayor Eric Adams on corruption charges. The indictment came shortly before the election, and at a time when Adams was making noises that he would cooperate with a new President Trump’s efforts to step up enforcement of the immigration laws. At the time I had two posts on the subject, one on September 26 titled “Who Is More Corrupt, Eric Adams or the Biden/Harris DOJ/FBI?”, and the second on September 27 titled “More On The Adams Indictment.” My general comment then was that the indictment was “shockingly thin,” and I concluded (in the September 26 post):

At this point, it is a safe bet that anything the DOJ/FBI is doing in the political sphere is corrupt. Adams may well also be a little corrupt, but nothing remotely at their level.

A few days ago, on February 11, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove instructed the SDNY to dismiss the Adams indictment. The next day, February 12, the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, one Danielle Sassoon, responded with a rather extraordinary 8 page single-spaced letter of resignation, addressed to new Attorney General Pam Bondi. Sassoon’s letter speaks from a self-proclaimed pinnacle of righteous indignation. The letter came somewhat as a surprise because Sassoon was not some Biden holdover, but rather had been newly designated by Trump to hold the position while awaiting confirmation of his recent nominee (Jay Clayton); and she came with seemingly impeccable conservative credentials.

Sassoon’s resignation letter was promptly followed by extensive commentary from conservative and centrist outlets supporting her position. As examples, see the Wall Street Journal editorial page here (“the real story speaks well of the prosecutors but sends a rotten message to any lawyer who might want to join the Trump Administration”); the editors of the Free Press here (“The scope and nature of the interventions of the Trump Justice Department are shocking. . . .”); David Post at the Volokh Conspiracy here (“the odious and reprehensible Eric Adams deal”); and Ed Whalen at National Review here (“In an act of courage and integrity, Danielle Sassoon, Donald Trump’s own hand-picked interim United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, resigned yesterday. . . .”).

One of the only commenters I have found standing up for the position of the Trump DOJ on this dispute is Josh Blackman, also writing at the Volokh Conspiracy. He has had three posts there on the subject, here on February 13, here on the 14th, and here on the 15th.

On this one, I come down strongly on the side of Blackman and of the Trump DOJ. The issues are important, and reflect a fundamental difference of views about the Constitution and about the role of criminal prosecutions in the political process. I also want to make a few points that go beyond what Blackman has already said.

But let’s start with Sassoon’s letter. Basically her position is that here in the Southern District of New York, we are a-political, and we make completely impartial charging decisions based on nothing more than the law and the facts:

When I took my oath of office . . . I vowed to well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I was about to enter. In carrying out that responsibility, I am guided by, among other things, the Principles of Federal Prosecution . . . and your recent memoranda instructing attorneys for the Department of Justice . . . not to use the criminal enforcement authority of the United States to achieve political objectives. . . .

The Adams indictment, according to Sassoon, had nothing to do with politics, and is well-supported in fact and law. And therefore it follows, according to Sassoon, that she cannot in good faith seek its dismissal:

The Government Does Not Have a Valid Basis To Seek Dismissal. . . . Mr. Bove’s memorandum identifies two grounds for the contemplated dismissal. I cannot advance either argument in good faith.

Well, Ms. Sassoon, have you thought about this as a justification for dismissal?: The President — and through him, the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General — hold the power of what is called “prosecutorial discretion” under the Constitution. They can decline to prosecute any matter that in their judgment is not worth the resources devoted to it or does not on balance and in their judgment advance the public good. And they have exercised that judgment. QED.

Here is Blackman’s articulation of the dispute, from his February 14 post:

What we have here are two very different conceptions of the federal criminal justice system. On the one hand, Sassoon and her colleagues defend the traditional notion that "independent" prosecutors have the power to define what is in the public good. They can define when public officials abuse their power, and can punish those actions with criminal sanctions. . . . Those defending Sassoon are invested in the DOJ club, and the continuation of its longstanding practices. President Trump, through Bove, articulate[s] a different perspective. The President, as head of the executive branch, can make his own determination of what is in the public good, and determine when public officials are abusing their power. Trump, perhaps more than any living person, is uniquely situated to make this sort of judgment.

Blackman’s February 13 post continues with a long list of the recent disasters that have befallen the so-called “Public Integrity Section” of the Justice Department in its efforts to bring perfect justice and fairness and honesty to the world of politics. The Public Integrity Section is that part of Justice that was headed by none other than Jack Smith from 2010 to 2015. Blackman’s list of disasters begins chronologically with the prosecution of John Edwards, that ended in 2012 with a hung jury. 

The prosecutor was none other than Jack Smith. Next we have the prosecution of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, again with Jack Smith as lead prosecutor. McDonnell was convicted by a jury, but that conviction was reversed by the Supreme Court in 2016 — unanimously. 

Then there was the so-called “Bridgegate” prosecution of members of the Chris Christie administration, Kelly v. U.S., reversed by the Supreme Court in 2020, again unanimously. 

Two members of the Andrew Cuomo administration in New York, Percoco and Ciminelli, got prosecuted and convicted by Justice in connection with a scandal involving a stadium for the Buffalo Bills; the Supreme Court reversed unanimously in 2023. The Supreme Court has taken another DOJ public corruption matter this term — Koussis v. U.S. — and Blackman predicts another reversal.

Blackman makes some excellent points. But there are many more. Here are a few:

• Where did the federal DOJ get the idea that its mission includes policing political corruption among state and local officeholders? That certainly is not among the enumerated powers of the federal government to be found in the Constitution. If you think that DOJ meddling in state and local affairs on this subject goes back to the beginning of the Republic, you would be wrong.  In fact, the federal government only got into this business in any significant way in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when a U.S. Attorney for New Jersey named Herbert Stern prosecuted several state officials under old statutes not previously used for this purpose, and the Third Circuit upheld him. See a Wikipedia summary on this subject here. Meanwhile, all the states have anti-bribery statutes, and they have prosecutors and courts and juries.  Maybe there is an argument for the feds to step in in some truly extraordinary case, where the entire state and local infrastructure had been compromised by vast corruption, but that is not the Adams case at all. Why is DOJ so concerned if Alvin Bragg can’t be bothered? How is it that nobody in the federal DOJ even gives a moment’s thought to whether it is appropriate to use federal power against a co-sovereign official on a relatively minor allegation of corruption. Why should this not be left to the local authorities?
• Then there is the question of the vast distinction between exercise of prosecutorial discretion to bring a case, versus exercise of discretion not to bring a case. The most important single fact about the world of criminal prosecution is that 99.9% (or more) of crimes never get prosecuted. That fact arises from the combination that there are way too many things that have been made crimes (many thousands at the federal level — you are almost certainly a federal criminal), and that most crimes are insignificant or trivial (even though some statute may impose a draconian penalty after conviction). Because of this fundamental disparity, the decision not to bring a case is almost always not an important decision, while the decision to bring a case is always an important decision.
• Ms. Sassoon asserts the proposition that the Adams charges came up through a completely fair and a-political process. (“[T]he charges in this case were recommended or approved by four experienced career prosecutors, the Chiefs of the SDNY Public Corruption Unit, and career prosecutors at the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department.”). How dumb is she? Assume that that is all true, and that all of the people she mentions are completely above politics. The fact remains that if Adams was acting as a Democratic Party/Biden Administration team player, the charges likely would never have gone anywhere. Clearly, somebody high up made a decision at some point that these charges were sufficiently important to warrant assigning four career prosecutors to investigate and prepare charges. If Adams had been in favor with the right people, those people never would have been assigned, and charges would never happen. And if he had been a team player, any charges that did get off the ground could still have been quietly scuttled at the top levels of the Department before indictment.
• And then there’s the question of all the other charges that never get brought. How is it that nobody at DOJ has ever been interested in Biden family corruption, or Clinton corruption? (The cases actually brought against Hunter Biden involved taxes and lying on a gun application, not corruption or bribery. Even if you assume that a prosecution against Joe while he was out of office would have been wrong politically, bribery charges against Hunter and Jim and other Bidens were open and obvious and were allowed to have their statutes of limitations quietly expire.). Did Ms. Sassoon ever speak up about this? Did any other lawyer at DOJ speak up or object? I mean, the FBI was thoroughly corrupt, but at least they had a handful of whistleblowers over there. Among the DOJ lawyers, none that I know of.

Overall, I’m not saying that the dropping of the Adams prosecution was perfect. I would have preferred if Mr. Bove had said something more like “The prosecution of Eric Adams is not worth federal prosecutorial resources, and you are directed to drop it. The state and local authorities may further pursue it if they see fit.” However, on balance, the Trump Justice Department has by far the better side of this matter.

More On The Adams Indictment

September 27, 2024 Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

Does the indictment of Eric Adams represent a bona fide prosecution of a dishonest politician, or is it mainly retribution against a political opponent by a deeply corrupt DOJ and FBI? As several commenters on yesterday’s post noted, we have come to a very sad point when our first thought upon an indictment of a politician is that it may well represent the deep state using its powers to take out a political opponent. But after four years of the deeply politicized Biden-Harris-Garland Justice Department, that’s where we are. And it is entirely appropriate for the citizenry to evaluate the present indictment in light of the DOJ’s conduct throughout the course of this administration.

Unlike my usual approach, I wrote the post yesterday immediately after learning about and reading the indictment, and before allowing any time for things to settle down. Today many other voices have weighed in. In this post I’ll consider a few of them. But the bottom line is, there is every reason to believe that this indictment is mostly politically motivated, and has little or nothing to do with fighting real corruption.

Let’s look first at a few things that might at first seem to support the bona fides of the indictment. The New York Post today in its news pages devotes six pages to the charges. Most of that coverage just runs through and highlights the allegations, thus giving them substantial credibility, whether deserved or not.

Here is an example. The headline for the article on page 4 is “Fancy flights, $10M for elex in fed raps.” (The online headline is different, but similarly references the allegation that Adams “fraudulently got $10M in public funds.”). Is there really a charge in this indictment that Adams fraudulently got $10 million in public campaign funds? If so, that would be a big deal, perhaps even on a par with Biden’s collecting $10 million from the government of China. But in fact the $10 million figure is almost entirely unrelated to the actual charges in the case and was clearly thrown in in a disgraceful effort to prejudice Adams.

The allegation about the $10 million in fraudulent campaign funds comes from paragraph 3 of the indictment. The background is that New York City has a program of matching public funds for contributions to politicians running in local races, including for Mayor. The match only applies if the donor is a resident of the jurisdiction where the race takes place, and only applies for donations up to $250. One of the charges in this indictment is that the Adams campaign collected matching funds where the donors were “straw” donors and the real donors did not qualify for the match. Here is the relevant text of the indictment containing the $10 million figure:

ADAMS and those working at his direction falsely certified compliance with applicable campaign finance regulations despite ADAMS’s repeated acceptance of straw donations, relying on the concealed nature of these illegal contributions to falsely portray his campaigns as law-abiding. As a result of those false certifications, ADAMS’s 2021 mayoral campaign received more than $10,000,000 in public funds.

Did you get the impression from that that Adams fraudulently got $10 million in public matching funds. That was clearly the intent, and the headline writer for the Post fell for it. But in fact if you go through the detailed allegations of the indictment, you will find that the specific amounts of “straw” donations alleged come to at most a few tens of thousands of dollars. Most of the donations specifically mentioned came in increments of $2000, of which only the first $250 gets the match. So the amounts of fraudulently obtained matching funds based on the improper donations alleged in the indictment would again be in the range of a few tens of thousands of dollars. 

The $10 million figure is not the amount of matches for these alleged improper donations, but rather is the total amount of matching funds that Adams received during the campaign. The basis for putting the $10 million figure in the indictment, never stated clearly, is apparently that the Adams campaign filed a certification as to its claim for matching funds attesting that all claims were proper. Therefore, somehow, the whole $10 million would be tainted if even one donor were fake.

Notably, despite throwing in the $10 million figure for maximum prejudice against the defendant, there is no charge in the indictment for fraudulently obtaining New York City matching campaign funds. That is undoubtedly because the federal prosecutors have no jurisdiction to prosecute violations of New York State and City campaign finance law. The only campaign finance violations charged in the indictment are violations of federal law prohibiting foreigners from donating to U.S. political campaigns.

Among the outlets giving some credence to the indictment, there is National Review from this morning. Excerpt:

Damian Williams, the Biden-appointed U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), announced a five-count corruption indictment. In a series of schemes tracing back a decade, when he was Brooklyn borough president, Adams is alleged to have put his growing political influence and potential on sale, particularly to foreign bidders. The most energetic of these were from Turkey — emissaries of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s unsavory regime and well-heeled businesspeople adjacent to it.

NR expresses skepticism that the indictment is a political hit job, on the basis that the indictment has potential political risks for the Harris campaign:

Adams’s prosecution, and the certainty that he would accuse the administration of vindictiveness, could only call more attention to Vice President Harris’s role in the collapse of border security — not what she would have wanted six weeks before Election Day.

Maybe, but I doubt it. More likely, the thinking is that the Adams indictment neutralizes him as a critic of the border policy. And meanwhile, the Democratic Party left here in New York hates Adams for many reasons, ranging from his stance on the migrant crisis to his modest support of law and order to the overriding fact that his occupation of the mayoralty prevents them having one of their true believers (like Jumaane Williams or Brad Lander) hold the office.

While the New York Post’s news pages fell for the scam of the $10 million allegation in the indictment, the editorial page and columnists are appropriately more skeptical. In a column today, the excellent Jonathan Turley compares the conduct of Adams alleged here to the conduct of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in connection with the Met Gala three years ago:

[M]any populist politicians tend to be a pampered class who expect to be feted in the best quarters as they speak as the “voice of the people.” That was captured most vividly by NYC Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sashayed at the Met Gala in a designer dress reading “tax the rich.” It was a scene with a crushing irony. The dress itself was worth more than some people make in a year and it was just “loaned” to AOC despite being made specifically for her. She also did not pay for her ticket, which would cost $35,000.

The $35,000 comped Met Gala ticket, and the specially-made dress (probably another $25,000 or so) come to a total not dramatically less than the amounts alleged with respect to Adams here. Has AOC ever done any act as Congresswoman that could be construed as a “quid pro quo” because it somehow benefited the Metropolitan Museum, or perhaps Condé Nast (main sponsor of the Met Gala)? I’ll bet if you had a few million dollars to investigate you could find something at least as significant as Adams expediting a fire inspection for the Turkish consulate. Of course, the FBI and DOJ have no interest. AOC is one of their team.

I’m not contending that Adams is pure as the driven snow. He may well have committed unforced errors, and if so, he will deserve his fate. As I’ve said many times, the entire business of politics is inherently corrupt. But some are much more corrupt than others.

Who Is More Corrupt, Eric Adams Or The Biden-Harris DOJ/FBI?

September 26, 2024 Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

Editor's Note:  I think this is an interesting article and fits in nicely with Daniel Greenfield's piece, NYC Mayor Indicted After Breaking with Biden Admin on Illegal Aliens.  While neither of them doubt Adam's is corrupt, they offer a lot of food for thought.   RK

The answer to the question is that it’s not a close call. The Biden-Harris DOJ/FBI is far more corrupt.

For the latest evidence, consider the new federal criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Yesterday, a federal grand jury, acting at the behest of the Biden-Harris Department of Justice and FBI, handed down an indictment of Adams. The indictment was then released today. The full text can be found here.

Plenty in the Democrat Party media took the occasion to credit the work of the feds and jump all over Adams. As an example, the headline at Bloomberg News is “NYC Mayor Was Corrupt For Years, US Claims in Scathing Case.” Adams, on the other hand, responded by accusing the Biden-Harris DOJ/FBI of engaging in corrupt pay-back for his speaking out about the Biden-Harris immigration crisis and its impact on the City. Adams released a video with his response, available at the New York Post website. Excerpt:

Despite our pleas, when the federal government did nothing as its broken immigration policies overloaded our shelter system with no relief, I put the people of New York before party and politics. . . . I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target — and a target I became.

Who has the better side of the case? I’m old enough to remember when if the feds handed up an indictment of a politician, you could be very sure that they had a real case. Those days are long gone. Today under Biden and Harris, the DOJ and FBI are very much in the business of corruptly using their power and resources to harass their political opponents, and jail them if possible.

Could that be what’s going on here? Let’s look at the indictment. I have read the whole thing carefully, and it is shockingly thin. There has been a full-bore federal investigation going on for many months, probably more than a year. Many millions of federal taxpayer dollars have been expended. Is this all they have come up with?

A federal bribery case basically must allege a quid pro quo: someone has paid (or given a “thing of value”) to a politician, in return for some kind of misuse of government resources (an “official act”). Here’s what they allege.

The “payment”

Almost all of the indictment deals with Adams’s relations with some Turkish businessmen or officials of the Turkish government. One of the officials was an executive at Turkish Airlines. During the period 2016 to 2021 (all before Adams became Mayor) the allegation is that the Turkish officials arranged for Adams to get complimentary upgrades for himself and travel companions on Turkish airlines, from coach to business class, on six occasions. On two of these occasions, it is also alleged that Adams was provided with a comped luxury hotel suite. A table on page 41 of the indictment lays out the alleged value of these travel perks. The total is $133,000 — a figure that is laughable when compared to the amount of foreign payola accepted by Joe Biden and his family with zero DOJ interest. And based on my own experience with coach and business class fares, the $133,000 figure appears to be substantially inflated.

There are also allegations that various Turkish nationals arranged to make contributions to Adams’s campaigns, mainly his 2021 campaign for Mayor. Since foreign nationals are prohibited from making contributions to U.S. political campaigns, the allegation is that Adams and the real donors (Turkish businessmen or state actors) arranged to make the contributions through “straw” donors, that is, U.S. citizens who could legally make donations, and who would then be reimbursed. Unlike with the airline upgrades, there is no handy table in the indictment to tell us the amounts at issue; but from the various examples cited, it would appear that the amounts at issue are well less than $100,000 total.

The Quid Pro Quo

And what is Adams alleged to have done in return for these gifts? Again, the relevant allegations are spread across the indictment, but I find three things:

• Adams received a request to stop associating with a Turkish-American group that was critical of the Turkish government, and he complied with that request.
• The second alleged quid pro quo arose in September 2021, a time when Adams was Borough President of Brooklyn, but had just won the Democratic primary for the nomination for Mayor, and was therefore heavily favored to become the next Mayor, although the election had not yet occurred. At this time the President of Turkey was planning a visit to New York in connection with the UN General Assembly meeting, and intended to use the occasion to inaugurate a new Turkish consulate in New York. The consulate was in a brand new building that was awaiting its Certificate of Occupancy, which however had been held up pending inspection by the New York Fire Department for fire safety issues. In this context, Adams allegedly heavily lobbied the Fire Department to expedite the inspection and clear a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy so that the event could take place during the visit. The Fire Department then accelerated the inspection at Adams’s request and issued the TCO so that the event could proceed.
• Adams allegedly acceded to a request to add a Turkish national with connections to the government to his transition team as he got ready to take the office of Mayor on January 1, 2022.

The first and third of those acts would not in my view rise to the level of an “official act” sufficient to support a bribery charge under Supreme Court precedent. The second at least involves actions taken in an official capacity, but could also be the kind of thing that a Borough President (largely a ceremonial office) would do for any foreign government. Unlike, for example, threatening to withhold foreign aid in order to get a prosecutor fired.

The alleged campaign finance violations at least involve a real crime, if they can be proven. The key is whether Adams knew that the donors listed on his records were not the real donors because they were being reimbursed. Even if they were, the amounts are not large, and look like the kind of thing that would normally be dealt with by FEC fines rather than a full-bore criminal prosecution.

Meanwhile also in today’s New York Post is an article about testimony yesterday of a guy named Marcus Allen before the House Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government. Allen was an FBI staff operations specialist when, on September 29, 2021, he forwarded an email to supervisors and colleagues at the FBI Charlotte field office which included hyperlinks to sources raising questions about the number of FBI sources embedded with the protestors at the Capitol on January 6. From the Post:

Allen sent the links to highlight what he believed was not “forthright” testimony by FBI Director Christopher Wray about confidential human sources not being at the Capitol during the “Stop the Steal” rally thrown by former President Donald Trump. His belief was buttressed by reporting that originated in the New York Times and included links to other well-known political news sites like the polling aggregator RealClearPolitics.

The FBI responded to Allen raising questions with a 2+ year campaign against him:

Marcus Allen, whose attorneys reached a settlement with the bureau earlier this year, told the Judiciary Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government that higher-ups “accused me of promoting conspiratorial views and unreliable information” for questioning how many confidential informants were present at the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. “The FBI questioned my allegiance to the United States, suspended my security clearance, suspended my pay and refused to allow me to obtain outside employment or even accept charity,” Allen testified about the 27 months he was held in “indefinite limbo.”

The Post notes that the Wray testimony that was questioned by Allen was later contradicted by 2023 testimony from ex FBI Washington Field Office Assistant Director in Charge, who said that the Bureau had so many confidential sources embedded on January 6 that it had “lost count” of how many.

The DOJ Inspector General issued a report that backed Allen, which led to his receiving back pay and re-instatement of his security clearance.

And of course the FBI/DOJ cases against Donald Trump proceed even as Trump could well be re-elected President next month.

At this point, it is a safe bet that anything the DOJ/FBI is doing in the political sphere is corrupt. Adams may well also be a little corrupt, but nothing remotely at their level.