On Wednesday, February 19, 2025, at 2 p.m. EST, representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) will appear before Judge Dale E. Ho in Manhattan to discuss Acting United States Attorney General Emil Bove’s request to dismiss corruption charges levied against Mayor Eric Adams.
On September 26, 2024, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment charging Adams with bribery, campaign finance, and conspiracy offenses. More specifically, Adams has been accused of receiving $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and travel accommodations from Turkish officials seeking to gain influence. Adams pleaded guilty and claimed he was not guilty of any wrongdoing.
On Friday, February 14, 2025, Bove filed paperwork seeking to have the charges against Adams dismissed. In a memo, Bove reportedly argued prosecuting the mayor would “unduly” restrict his “ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime” in New York.
When submitted, the motion to dismiss the charges featured three signatures, including Bove’s, Edward Sullivan’s of the DOJ’s public integrity section, and veteran federal prosecutor Antoinette Bacon’s. No one from the prosecutor’s office in Manhattan, which formed the case against Adams, signed the motion to dismiss. Instead, at least seven prosecutors in Manhattan and Washington resigned instead of cosigning Bove’s motion to dismiss.
“No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives,” former assistant U.S. attorney Hagan Scotten said.
In the first month of his second term, Donald Trump has empowered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement( ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to implement his immigration enforcement policy, leading to approximately 100 arrests in New York within a week. Moving forward, many expect Adams to push an executive order to allow ICE agents to work on Rikers Island. Critics of Adams have argued the mayor is being persuaded to allow ICE agents on Rikers Island in exchange for the dismissal of his corruption charges.
“Adams must be removed. The city cannot sustain being governed for nearly a year by a Mayor who is being coerced by Trump admin in order to escape charges,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said. “This corruption poses a real threat to the people of the city. He should have resigned a while ago, but will not. So it’s time for him to go.”
