New Court Filing Confirms Internal Investigation at SDNY in Eric Adams Case

Private comms between top prosecutors, who resigned with great fanfare last month, contradict their public preening--and appear to bolster DOJ's accusations of political motivations in the case.

In a motion filed on Friday, the Department of Justice confirmed an “ongoing investigation” into former prosecutors involved in the case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Last month, the Trump DOJ asked the presiding judge to dismiss the federal indictment handed down by then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams in September 2024. DOJ officials cited “well-founded concerns regarding the weaponization, election interference, and the impediments that the case has imposed on Mayor Adams' ability to govern and cooperate with federal law enforcement to keep New York City safe” as reasons to drop the five-count indictment.

The request generated wall-to-wall headlines after several SDNY prosecutors resigned with a few publicly issuing resignation letters in protest, which I reported here. The revolt against the wishes of the new president was greeted with high praise from all political corners, described not as insubordination but rather as acts of “courage” and “integrity.”

But private communications obtained in the DOJ’s internal inquiry directly contradict what a few prosecutors said publicly, undermining their expressions of self-righteous indignation at the time. And one particularly damning text suggests a lead prosecutor was banking on a conviction of Adams before pursuing a judgeship.

A Maelstrom of Prosecutorial Malfeasance

The fall-out started on February 12 when Acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon leaked to the media an eight-page resignation letter she wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi defending the case and rejecting the department’s explanation as to why it would not continue to prosecute the case. She pointedly downplayed concerns about Damian Williams’ politicking after he resigned following Trump’s election. Just weeks after he left the office, Williams, appointed by Joe Biden in 2021 to head the powerful SDNY office, launched a campaign-style website and published a lengthy article on a New York policy website that appears to represent a campaign platform for a statewide run for office.

Describing Williams’ involvement in the investigation as “minimal” and claiming he did not “manage the day-to-day” work on the case, Sassoon, a temporary placeholder until the president’s nominee was confirmed, informed Bondi that Williams’ political aspirations should not be a reason to abandon the case: “It is not my role to defend Mr. Williams’s motives or conduct. Given the appropriate chronology of this investigation and the strength of the case, Mr. Williams’s conduct since leaving government service cannot justify dismissal here.”

But an email obtained by the DOJ shows Sassoon did have concerns about Williams’ public politicking. In the first draft of her resignation letter, which she emailed to herself, Sassoon wrote that she was “personally disappointed in [her] predecessor’s self-serving actions after his departure.”

The draft letter also admitted that “the Attorney General has the authority to order the dismissal of pending charges.

But neither sentence made it into her final letter. In fact, a sub-headline in the final version declared “The Government Does Not Have a Valid Basis To Seek Dismissal,” which contradicts what Sassoon wrote in her first version.

Further, the DOJ discovered evidence that Sassoon prepared a public relations offense tied to her resignation stunt. “On February 11, [Sassoon] sent an email attaching draft materials relating to her anticipated resignation. One of the documents was named ‘Adams PR,’ i.e., press release, which suggests that she was already planning to publicize her resignation,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove disclosed in the March 7 motion. (All correspondence is under seal for now.)

Does a “Coward” or a “Fool” Misrepresent His Own Beliefs?

But perhaps even more damning are the communications of former assistant U.S. attorney Hagan Scotten, who helped manage the case as it proceeded to trial. His February 14 resignation letter won widespread commendation from Democrats and the media, including from so-called conservatives at National Review.

Scotten also publicized his resignation letter, boasting about “a tradition in public service of resigning in a last-ditch effort to head off a serious mistake.”

He famously told Bove, the acting deputy attorney general at the time who had ordered the dismissal, that he would “eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion” to drop the case. He also mocked suggestions that Williams’ involvement damaged the credibility of the case. “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.”

It appears, however, that Scotten has political aspirations of his own. A few days after Trump won, an unidentified individual asked Scotten in a text if it was “time [for him] to take a seat on the bench,” referring to a judgeship. Scotten replied: “Got to convict Adams before I can think about anything else.”

Scotten’s communications in numerous emails revealed he too shared concerns related to Williams’ motivations in complete contradiction to his public protestations.

Scotten:

• “[Williams] obviously has political ambitions, and I think suggesting we doubt that just costs us credibility.”

• “I tried to…distance us from [Williams] enough that [Judge Dale] Ho and [President] Trump will know we don’t approve of what he did, but not so much that we magnify the scandal.”

• “I know that none of us were motivated by [Williams] political aspirations, but I don’t think any of us know for sure what motivated [Williams].”

• “I don’t want to ask anyone to reject the theory that [Williams] had a political motive in bringing this case. Seems pretty plausible to me.”

Those messages are enough for the DOJ to prove the political origin of the case—which the department will have the chance to do at a hearing before Judge Ho on March 14.

And the hits keep coming for Team Sassoon/Scotten. An outside attorney Ho retained to review the DOJ’s motion just concluded the case should be dismissed with prejudice, making it very likely the DOJ ultimately will prevail in its attempt to drop the case.

But headaches for former officials at SDNY are just beginning.