By James Fanelli

The alliance was months in the making: Eric Adams wanted out from under criminal prosecution, and the Trump administration wanted a big-city ally on illegal immigration. Now both camps are scrambling to contain the fallout from the Justice Department's decision to make the New York City mayor's bribery case go away.

A week of infighting at the department ended late Friday when the government moved to dismiss the prosecution of Adams -- but only after a series of resignations laid bare how unhappy career officials are with the decision by Trump appointees to come to the mayor's aid. The next move is in the hands of a judge, who could ask department leaders for more explanation on why they chose to abandon a case that had been years in the making.

Though Adams is averting prosecution, it came with some heavy costs. The Justice Department reserved the right to bring a case against him after the 2025 mayoral election, and it made clear that one of its central reasons for dropping the prosecution was so Adams could better focus on fighting illegal immigration. That left some New York leaders, including Democratic members of Congress and Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, calling for his resignation and warning that the conditions leave the mayor compromised.

"As long as Trump wields this leverage over Adams, the city is endangered," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district includes parts of the Bronx and Queens. "We cannot be governed under coercion."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she hadn't ruled out removing the mayor from office but wasn't going to rush to a decision.

Adams spent part of this week exploring his political options, including in a call with Bronx Republican Party chair Mike Rendino, who said he and the mayor discussed ways he could run on the GOP primary ballot if he wanted to. The mayor didn't say what his plans were, Rendino said. Adams later said in an NBC interview that he was going to run as a Democrat.

The mayor ended the week trying to allay any misgivings New Yorkers might have. "I never offered -- nor did anyone offer on my behalf -- any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case," the mayor said Friday.

The Manhattan U.S. attorney's office charged Adams in September with funneling illegal political contributions from Turkish officials into his campaign war chest while accepting airline upgrades and free hotel stays in exchange for official acts. He denied the allegations and had been running the city while preparing for a trial ahead of the mayoral primary in June.

Complicating matters was an intense presidential election in which Adams faced criticism for not vocally opposing Trump. The mayor's supporters say he purposely stayed above the fray to avoid alienating either Trump or Kamala Harris, knowing that whoever won would control billions of dollars in federal funding to the city, and Adams would need them as a partner.

Trump publicly sympathized with Adams, who has said he was targeted for criticizing the Biden administration's handling of the migrant crisis. At an October charity dinner in Manhattan that the mayor attended, Trump spoke favorably of Adams. And in December, he said he would consider pardoning the mayor.

After Trump's victory, Adams moved to build a working relationship with the president-elect and his team, according to the mayor's supporters.

"The responsible thing to do is to cooperate with all branches," said Frank Carone, the mayor's former chief of staff and longtime adviser. "The fact that ultimately the new Justice Department decided to review the case, that was not the mayor's intent."

Adams developed a rapport with Trump and his team over several conversations and meetings, including a Jan. 17 lunch at the Trump International Golf Course in Florida. The two men found common ground on what they both saw as a need for cracking down on illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes.

"They're both hardened New Yorkers who grew up in the outer boroughs with a sense of grit and common sense," Carone said.

The new administration gave Adams's legal team an opportunity to make their case that the indictment should be dropped.

In correspondence, his lawyers argued that prosecutors were relying on a single witness and weak evidence. The advocacy culminated in a Jan. 31 make-or-break meeting at Justice Department headquarters, which included Emil Bove, a former Trump defense lawyer whom the administration had installed as the acting deputy attorney general, and Danielle Sassoon, a prosecutor with conservative credentials whom the administration had designated as the acting Manhattan U.S. attorney.

Adams lawyer Alex Spiro told the gathered prosecutors that the indictment had impacted the mayor's ability to lead the city, according to people familiar with the matter. He said the mayor's security clearance had been revoked, leaving Adams unable to be briefed by federal law-enforcement officials on terrorism or criminal matters.

Sassoon and her team pushed back at the assertions. And in a letter this week to Attorney General Pam Bondi, she alleged that the mayor's attorneys during the meeting "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."

A member of her team took notes during the meeting but was admonished by Bove for doing so, and he ordered the notes collected at the end of the meeting, Sassoon said in her letter.

Spiro denied the allegations, saying in a statement that his team made no quid-pro-quo offer and the Justice Department didn't ask for one. "We were asked if the case had any bearing on national security and immigration enforcement and we truthfully answered it did," he said.

People close to the mayor say Adams received no advanced notice of the memo Bove sent to Sassoon on Monday that ordered her to dismiss the charges. Bove cited intrusion upon the mayor's duties, as well as another reason Spiro had offered: political inference. Bove said the prosecution interfered with the mayoral race and suggested Adams had been targeted because he was a critic of Biden administration immigration policies.

Sassoon resigned in protest on Thursday, and at least six more Justice Department lawyers followed suit. The standoff has poisoned relationships between the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office and the Justice Department headquarters, which has taken over control of the Adams case. It also has roiled the department's public-integrity section, which focuses on cases of public corruption.

The unit's entire management team resigned rather than accede to Bove's demand that they drop the case. The remaining roughly two dozen lawyers were rattled after Bove called them into a tense meeting Friday and told them via a video call that they would have just one hour to decide which of them would sign the court motion to dismiss it, people familiar with the matter said. As they debated their dwindling options, some reached out to employment lawyers, the people said.

Officials who remain in the section are unsure what cases they will be able to work on, the people said.

Bondi's chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, on Friday afternoon said the department "will return to its core function of prosecuting dangerous criminals, not pursuing politically motivated witch hunts."

Senate Democrats on Friday called for the department's inspector general to investigate Bove and Bondi and requested the preservation of all documents related to the dismissal.

Write to James Fanelli at james.fanelli@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 15, 2025 12:51 ET (17:51 GMT)

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