The Manhattan federal judge presiding over Mayor Adams’ corruption case on Friday said he would appoint an independent attorney to argue against the Justice Department’s bid to dismiss the high profile prosecution, neither approving nor denying the controversial move to toss the case.
In a new development, Manhattan Federal Judge Dale Ho said the appointment of attorney Paul Clement was appropriate to assist him in his decision-making. Ho had earlier indicated his ruling could involve a “multi-step” process.
“That is particularly so in light of the public importance of this case, which calls for careful deliberation,” Ho wrote.
Ho also said it was clear the mayor’s trial would not go forward on April 21, as planned.
Ho’s ruling came after he grilled Trump’s acting No. 2 at the Department of Justice, Emil Bove, and the mayor’s lawyer, Alex Spiro at a Feb. 19 hearing, about the terms of the deal that have come under intense scrutiny and led to calls for Adams’ removal from office. The Trump Department of Justice had argued it needed the mayor to aid the president’s hardline crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
The judge ordered the parties to file briefs on the matter by March 7, which he may consider at a hearing on March 19.
The independent attorney, Paul Clement, was the U.S. solicitor general under George W. Bush. Clement did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ho’s decision adds another wrinkle to an already highly-charged process.
A dismissal in the case would not mean the mayor is in the clear. Bove said the hearing that the DOJ may pursue another indictment against Adams in the future and that prosecutors may continue to investigate him.
That prospect has opened up Adams to broad criticism that he is now beholden to Trump and his hardline agenda. The deal, scored on multiple fronts as the mayor abandoning New York City’s immigrant communities to save his own skin, has had swift and wide-reaching fallout.
Four of Adams’ deputy mayors have resigned. Gov. Hochul, facing mounting pressure to remove Adams from office, Thursday announced a proposal for new “ethics guardrails” that would curtail the mayor’s powers and ramp up oversight of Adams’ office.
The DOJ’s move also touched off internal turmoil. Bove himself filed the motion to dismiss the case Feb. 14 following the protest resignations of former interim Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, one of the lead prosecutors on the case, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotten, and several other high-ranking DOJ staffers.
While the motion said it was not based on a belief of whether Adams was innocent or guilty, it argued Adams’ need to cooperate with Trump’s hardline immigration tactics unimpeded, among other concerns that those who resigned called baseless.
Before resigning, Sassoon wrote U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi expressing alarm at the deal offered to Adams and saying it amounted to a “quid pro quo” between the mayor and the Trump administration, which would see Adams dodge criminal liability in exchange for aiding Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the largest sanctuary city in the country.
Sassoon — a veteran prosecutor and Republican who Trump placed in the top job role on his first full day in office one month ago — further advised the new AG that Manhattan feds had been preparing to file more charges against the mayor, accusing him of trying to cover up his crimes from the FBI. Adams has denied those allegations through his attorney.
Following Sassoon and Scotten’s high-profile resignations, Bove threatened to fire the DOJ’s entire public integrity section in Washington, D.C., if nobody agreed to file the motion.
Bove, who, in an unusual set of circumstances, represented the government alone at Wednesday’s hearing, is managing the DOJ’s daily functioning pending Todd Blanche’s Senate confirmation. Both men represented Trump in his criminal hush money case, in which he was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Following his September indictment, Adams, 64, pleaded not guilty to five counts carrying up to 45 years in prison alleging he sold his political influence to wealthy foreign businessmen in or with ties to the Turkish government for some 10 years.
The indictment further accused him of soliciting and accepting illegal campaign donations from his benefactors starting in around 2018 when he decided to run for mayor. The case alleged that those donations were funneled through U.S. citizens to mask their origins and maximized with taxpayer dollars through the city’s public matching funds program.
Adams allegedly repaid his debts by pulling strings for his benefactors, including meddling in a Manhattan skyscraper’s fire safety regulations to appease Turkey’s authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Since the terms of the dismissal were announced, the mayor has said he would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to operate on Rikers Island in contravention of the city’s longstanding sanctuary city laws. In an email blast Thursday, the White House included the mayor’s cooperation as No. 13 on “President Trump’s list of wins.”
Adams and Spiro have denied there was any quid pro quo.
In an interview on Fox last week, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, sitting beside the mayor, said if Adams “doesn’t come through” on his end of the agreement, he’d be “up his butt.”
This story will be updated.
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