The Hammer Drops at Justice

New leadership and new rules are too much for sanctimonious DOJ employees, who resign rather than follow orders to depoliticize the department.

Emil Bove, in his typical fashion, was having none of it.

In a scathing nine-page letter, the acting deputy attorney general detailed a long list of insubordination and politicking by Danielle Sassoon, the temporary U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, related to her refusal to drop the federal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams as instructed. Last September, the then-U.S. Attorney for SDNY handed down a five-count indictment against the Democratic mayor, a move some considered political retribution for Adams’ intraparty squabbles with the Biden administration.

A review by the Trump Department of Justice, consistent with the president’s executive order to halt the weaponization of the DOJ, determined the investigation into Adams had “accelerated after Mayor Adams publicly criticized President Biden's failed immigration policies,” Bove wrote. Bove, who once worked as a prosecutor in the SDNY office, further explained the case represented “election interference”—Adams is up for re-election this year—and “imposed on Mayor Adams' ability to govern and cooperate with federal law enforcement to keep New York City safe.” (Bove also noted the apparent political aspirations of Damian Williams, her predecessor responsible for the Adams case. Williams landed on Kamala Harris’ short list for attorney general right after announcing the charges; after Trump won, he launched a campaign-style website touting, among other prosecutions, the Adams indictment.)

But Sassoon, also in typical fashion for federal prosecutors, sanctimoniously touted her alleged “principles” and loyalty to the rule of law as reasons to defy Bove’s order. “Because the law does not support a dismissal, and because I am confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged, I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations,” Sassoon, who had been in the post a mere three weeks, wrote. “I understand my duty as a prosecutor to mean enforcing the law impartially, and 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 offered her resignation if Bove did not reverse course. He not only accepted her resignation but announced she would be the subject of investigations by both Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Office of Professional Responsibility.

Who Are the Fools and Cowards?

Others quickly joined Sassoon at the unemployment line—or the line to become the newest MSNBC legal analyst. Six more DOJ officials resigned; Hagan Scotten, one of two prosecutors on the Adams case, tendered his resignation on February 14. “I expect you will find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion [to dismiss]” Scotten, whom Bove had placed on paid leave pending an investigation into his insubordination, wrote.

But if their collective intention was to demonstrate independence and integrity, it achieved the opposite—with the exception of DOJ bootlickers at National Review and the Wall Street Journal. Recent polls indicate historically low levels of support for the DOJ among Republicans, something apparently lost on so-called “conservative” publications.

Americans voted for Donald Trump in a partial repudiation of overzealous government lawyers, the sort perfectly embodied by Sassoon and company, using their unchecked power to imprison those they consider to be on the wrong side of the political aisle.

The exodus represented another in a series of purges, forced and otherwise, at the DOJ since Trump took office. On January 21, at least 15 senior DOJ officials were removed or reassigned. A few days later, several members of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team also were fired. (Smith resigned on January 10.) Dozens of prosecutors who had been hired on a temporary basis to handle January 6 cases were dismissed as the DOJ shuttered the so-called “Capitol Siege” investigation.

At the same time, house cleaning at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is under the purview of the DOJ, immediately got underway. Several top FBI officials were warned to clean out their desks or get the ax. Chiefs at the Miami and Washington field offices, responsible for the reckless armed raid of Mar-a-Lago, were sent packing.

Bove also called out the insubordination of acting FBI director Brian Driscoll, who, like Sassoon, refused to follow orders and produce the names of thousands of FBI employees involved in the unprecedented J6 investigation. (Driscoll reportedly compiled after Bove noted his defiance but sent the names over a classified server. He will be replaced, and possibly fired, next week after Kash Patel takes over.)

Dropping the Adams case not only comports with the president’s depoliticization directive but appears to meet new standards set forth in a February 5 memo by Bondi. She cautioned against bringing reckless cases and warned, “there is no place in the decision-making process for animosity or careerism.” DOJ employees, she reminded her department, are bound by the Justice Manual, which prohibits political or personal concerns related to charging decisions. “These types of considerations, which previously led to the improper weaponization of the criminal justice system at the federal and state levels, as President Trump observed in Executive Order 14147, 90 FR 8235, have no place in the Department,” she wrote.

Which is why the departure of folks like Sassoon and Scotten are welcome news. Their self-serving, media-whoring exit letters have nothing to do with upholding the law and everything to do with advancing their personal and perhaps political interests.