By Jack Queen, Mike Spector, Luc Cohen and Sarah N. Lynch
NEW YORK (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s drive to shake up the U.S. government drove out a rising star in conservative legal circles: A career federal prosecutor who once clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Danielle Sassoon, tapped to lead the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office on Trump’s second day in office, quit on Thursday rather than go along with a Justice Department order to drop a criminal corruption case against Democratic New York Mayor Eric Adams.
The department ordered the case dropped, citing the city’s approaching November mayoral election and saying that prosecuting Adams could interfere with his ability to assist with a crackdown on immigration, a top Trump priority. Trump has said he did not personally order the charges against Adams dropped.
The resignation illustrated the tensions between the traditional U.S. conservative Republican legal movement and Trump’s desire to exert far more direct control of the federal government, challenging standards of prosecutorial independence that have stood for a half century.
Beyond shaking up the criminal justice system that Trump believes was turned against him during his years out of power, he has vowed to shutter Cabinet departments, succeeded in installing a defense secretary through the narrowest possible Senate margin and challenged constitutional rights that have stood for more than 150 years.
Trump’s sweeping assertions of executive power during his first weeks back in office appear headed for showdowns at the U.S. Supreme Court where conservatives hold a majority, but it remains an open question whether or how much the justices might act to check his authority.
Sassoon, 38, a member of the deeply conservative Federalist Society who was installed as acting U.S. Attorney in Manhattan on January 21, was one of at least a half-dozen Justice Department employees to resign over the Adams order.
Another who stepped down, according to a source familiar with the matter, Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotten, also had a conservative legal pedigree, having clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, prior to his elevation to the high court during Trump’s first term.
Ilya Somin, a libertarian legal scholar who is also a member of the Federalist Society, said Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove’s directive to drop the Adams case was reflective of a shift in the nature of U.S. conservatism over the past decade that has shown less regard for the Constitution.
“There are disagreements between those who care about rule of law values, and those who are willing to subordinate themselves to other considerations,” said Somin, a law professor at George Mason University. “This sets a dangerous precedent.”
Trump’s pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, in her first day in office said that Justice Department lawyers who refuse to advance the administration’s legal arguments could be fired.
Bove, Trump’s former personal criminal defense lawyer who once served in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, wrote that Sassoon and the other prosecutors had violated their oaths of office in failing to follow instructions.
“In no valid sense do you uphold the Constitution by disobeying direct orders implementing the policy of a duly elected President,” Bove wrote.
REJECTING ‘POLITICALLY ADVANTAGEOUS’ MOVES
Sassoon wrote in a letter to Bondi that her responsibility as a prosecutor was to enforce the law impartially.
“That includes prosecuting a validly returned indictment regardless whether its dismissal would be politically advantageous, to the defendant or to those who appointed me,” Sassoon wrote.
Scotten, who also resigned, did not respond to a request for comment.
The resignations evoked comparisons to the “Saturday Night Massacre” in 1973, when senior Justice Department officials resigned after refusing President Richard Nixon’s order to fire the special counsel investigating the 1972 break-in by Republican operatives at the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington.
Randy Barnett, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, said Bove’s concern that the corruption case was hindering Adams’ ability to address public safety was adequately explained.
Sassoon “was refusing to execute a lawful command by her superior in the DOJ as required by DOJ procedures. This is what happens when you do that,” Barnett said. “It’s perfectly reasonable for Main Justice to take control of their subordinates.”
Adams, a Democrat who has pleaded not guilty to charges he accepted bribes from Turkish officials, has leaned toward Trump in recent months.
In her letter to Bondi, Sassoon criticized Bove for suggesting the indictment be dismissed while leaving open the possibility of reviving it later. She said that amounted to an implicit threat of future prosecution if Adams did not help Trump on immigration enforcement.
Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Adams, has denied any “quid pro quo.”
In accepting Sassoon’s resignation, Bove wrote that he was taking the extraordinary step of referring her, Scotten and another prosecutor on the case for investigations into possible misconduct.
‘UNDER THE THUMB’
The Justice Department under Trump has also suggested it would seek to criminally prosecute city and state officials who try to interfere with the administration’s immigration crackdown.
Paul Tuchmann, a former federal prosecutor who handled public corruption cases, said Bove’s referrals for investigation sent a signal that everyone at the Justice Department is “under the thumb” of Bove.
“If you do anything that’s not exactly what he wants, you’re going to be punished regardless of whether or not what he wants is appropriate or ethical,” said Tuchmann, now a partner at law firm Wiggin and Dana.
The fallout from the Adams case is far from over.
In his letter to Sassoon, Bove wrote that the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., was taking over the case from the Southern District of New York, long known for its autonomy. During Trump’s first term, the office brought criminal cases against people in Trump’s orbit.
For now, Sassoon’s former deputy, Matthew Podolsky, has taken over her former role. Further interventions by Trump appointees could spark more resignations at the office, legal experts said.
“This is a moment of truth for career prosecutors inside SDNY,” said former federal prosecutor Michael Weinstein. “I’m not so sure we’ve seen the end of resignations or protests just yet.”
(Reporting by Jack Queen, Mike Spector and Luc Cohen in New York and Sarah N. Lynch in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)
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