In February 2025, seven U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors resigned in response to orders from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to dismiss federal criminal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The resignations included two attorneys of the Southern District of New York, acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon and Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotten, as well as five attorneys in the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division's Public Integrity Section in Washington, D.C. including the acting head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, Kevin Driscoll, and the acting chief of Public Integrity, John Keller.
Sassoon resigned because she alleged in a letter that the dismissal of charges was intended to be a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would assist with Trump's enforcement priorities if the indictment were dismissed.
Commentators nicknamed the resignations the "Thursday Night Massacre", comparing them to the 1973 Saturday Night Massacre resignations when president Richard Nixon ordered officials from the Department of Justice to fire the special prosecutor heading the Watergate investigation. Due to the event's proximity to Valentine's Day, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade dubbed those terminated as the "Valentine's Day Seven".
Adams' case was dismissed with prejudice by judge Dale Ho in April 2025 due to inability to force a Justice Department prosecution. Ho reported no other examples of dismissing charges against elected officials to allow the official to "facilitate federal policy goals", indicating that this may amount to "special dispensation" which violates "the basic promise of equal justice under law".
Background
The New York Times reported on November 12, 2023, that the Mayor of New York Eric Adams was being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding alleged unlawful influence on Adams by the Turkish government.
Adams was indicted on federal charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting foreign campaign donations on September 25, 2024. On September 26, the case was unsealed, revealing the five charges: bribery, conspiracy, fraud, and two counts of soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. The alleged acts for which Adams was indicted begin in 2014, when he was still Brooklyn Borough President. Adams is accused of receiving luxury travel and other benefits from people from Turkey, namely a Turkish government official and a Turkish businessman. This included Adams pressuring the New York City Fire Department to open a Turkish consular building without a fire inspection. Allegedly, in order to cover up his misconduct, Adams created and instructed others to make false paper trails indicating that he actually paid for these trips in full. He was arraigned in federal court on September 27, entering a plea of not guilty.
In response, Adams said that the charges are "entirely false, based on lies", called for an immediate trial, and vowed to fight the charges. Adams claimed that the charges are retaliation for his opposing the Biden administration's handling of the migrant crisis. On September 30, Adams sought dismissal of the bribery charge against him for being "extraordinarily vague" and filed by "zealous prosecutors".
Resignations
Southern District of New York resignations Danielle Sassoon resignation
In January 2025, President Donald Trump appointed Danielle Sassoon as Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, pending the Senate confirmation of Jay Clayton.
On February 10, 2025, acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, who had previously been Donald Trump's criminal defense attorney, issued a memorandum directing Sassoon to dismiss the charges against Adams, as "authorized by the Attorney General". Bove stated that dismissal (without prejudice) was warranted "without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based", and that Adams' case would be relooked at after Adams' mayoral election. The reasons given by Bove in the memorandum were that the "prosecution has unduly restricted Mayor Adams' ability to devote full attention and resources to illegal immigration and violent crime" and "improperly interfered with Mayor Adams' campaign in the [November] 2025 mayoral election", taking into account that charges were brought after "Adams criticized the prior Administration's immigration policies". Bove also explicitly rejected the idea that this settlement was a quid pro quo in a footnote in the memo stating that "as Mr. Bove clearly stated to defense counsel during our meeting [on January 31, 2025], the Government is not offering to exchange dismissal of a criminal case for Adams's assistance on immigration enforcement."
On February 12, 2025, Sassoon, who is a registered Republican and a "member of a deeply conservative Federalist Society", sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi objecting to dropping the charges for explicitly political reasons, and requesting a meeting. Sassoon stated that "Mr. Bove rightly has never called into question that the case team conducted this investigation with integrity and that the charges against Adams are serious and supported by fact and law" but that Mr. Bove wants the case dismissed for "reasons having nothing to do with the strength of the case" and this "raises serious concerns that render the contemplated dismissal inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good-faith arguments before the courts". In that letter Sassoon stated "The reasons advanced by Mr. Bove for dismissing the indictment are not ones I can in good faith defend as in the public interest and as consistent with the principles of impartiality and fairness that guide my decision-making." Sassoon argues that "Mr. Bove proposes dismissing the charges against Adams in return for his assistance in enforcing the federal immigration laws, analogizing to the prisoner exchange in which the United States freed notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in return for an American prisoner in Russia" and that "[s]uch an exchange with Adams violates commonsense beliefs in the equal administration of justice, the Justice Manual, and the Rules of Professional Conduct." Sassoon continues that Adams's advocacy for helping out with immigration issues if the case is dismissed "should be called out for what it is: an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case". Sassoon also stated in her letter that she attended the January 31 meeting with Bove and Adams' lawyers. In that meeting, Sassoon described in her letter that Adams's lawyers "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." According to Sassoon's letter, Bove "'admonished' a member of her team for taking notes during the meeting, and later had the notes collected." Sassoon concluded her letter with her position that "In the event you are unwilling to meet or to reconsider the directive in light of the problems raised by Mr. Bove's memo, I am prepared to offer my resignation."
Rather than arranging a meeting with the Attorney General to address Sassoon's concerns, Bove preemptively accepted her resignation the following day, and stated that her conduct would be investigated by the Office of the Attorney General, pursuant to Executive Order 14147. Bove accused Sassoon of "insubordination and apparent misconduct", stating that he had removed the case from New York prosecutors' purview, was placing two prosecutors of Adams on leave, and was starting an investigation on Sassoon and these two prosecutors. Bove also highlighted that after Damian Williams (who prosecuted Adams) resigned from being a federal prosecutor, Williams started a personal website and wrote a political op-ed, which Bove said "politicized" Adams' prosecution. Bove also accused Sassoon of violating her duty: "In no valid sense do you uphold the Constitution by disobeying direct orders implementing the policy of a duly elected President."
Hagan Scotten resignation On February 13, 2025, Hagan Scotten, an "Iraq War veteran and Bronze Star recipient who clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts at the Supreme Court and at an appeals court for Justice Brett Kavanaugh" and a "registered Republican", resigned. Scotten disputed the two arguments that Bove gave for the dismissal stating that "the first justification...that Damian Williams's role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment...is so weak as to be transparently pretextual" and that the "second justification is worse" in that "[n]o 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. In explaining his resignation in a letter, Scotten wrote "any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way." He added: "If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me."Ramey, Corinne, and Sadie Gurman, "Another Star U.S. Prosecutor Quits Over Eric Adams Case, The Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2025. Retrieved 2025-02-14.
Department of Justice Public Integrity Section resignations After attempting to get the attorneys from the Southern District of New York to dismiss the case against Adams, and their resigning in protest, Bove turned next to the attorneys in U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division's Public Integrity Section. On February 13, 2025, five officials would resign from the Department of Justice (DOJ) Criminal Division rather than carry out the administration's order to dismiss the case.
The first to resign was Kevin Driscoll, the acting head of the Criminal Division, followed by John Keller, the acting head of the Criminal Division's Public Integrity Section. After both Driscoll and Keller resigned, Bove requested to speak to "three more prosecutors from the office", to find one who would file the dismissal. The prosecutors "initially tried to talk Bove out of forcing them to sign the filing", but when Bove insisted that one of them file the dismissal, the three "resigned on the spot".
The next day on February 14, Bove reportedly issued an ultimatum to the "nearly 20 lawyers" in the Public Integrity Section on a video call, which Josh Gerstein of Politico described as "Choose someone in the section to carry out the order to seek dismissal of the Adams case, or be fired." According to former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade posting on X: "DOJ leadership [put] all Public Integrity Section lawyers into a room with 1 hour to decide who will dismiss Adams indictment or else all will be fired... Sending them strength to stand by their oath, which is to support the Constitution, not the president's political agenda." The New York Times reported that Bove wanted two lawyers to sign the dismissal. It was also reported that Bove said those that did support the dismissal "could be promoted".