A seventh prosecutor resigned Friday rather than heed the Justice Department’s order to toss Mayor Eric Adams’ criminal case — and suggested only a “fool” or “coward” would comply on his way out.
Hagan Scotten — an assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York and the lead prosecutor on the case — said in a scathing resignation letter that dismissing the bribery, corruption and other charges against Adams was a “serious mistake” that keeps Hizzoner beholden to President Trump.
“Any assistant US 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,” Scotten fumed.
“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,” he added.
“But it was never going to be me.”
Scotten blasted the Trump DOJ’s “dismissal-with-leverage” proposal — admittedly made without considering how strong the evidence is that Adams took Turkish bribes — as an unlawful ploy to force the mayor to comply with Trump’s immigration agenda.
“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,” he wrote in the one-page missive.
The prosecutor and veteran, who served three combat tours in Iraq as a US Army Special Forces officer, added that he could understand how Trump, “whose background is in business and politics, might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal” — but that the DOJ lawyers should know better.
Scotten’s blistering memo came the day after the interim Manhattan US attorney, Danielle Sassoon, a Republican and former clerk for US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, resigned rather than obey the order to drop the case — while leaving the option open of resurrecting it after November.
In her own blistering resignation letter, Sassoon accused Adams of agreeing to follow Trump’s immigration orders as part of a “quid pro quo” deal to get his case dropped.
Trump’s Acting DOJ No. 2, Emil Bove, fired back with his own letter in which he claimed that the Adams case had been “politicized” and that prosecuting the mayor for taking bribes and illegal campaign contributions was “directly endangering the lives of millions of New Yorkers.”
“As a result of the pending prosecution, Mayor Adams is unable to communicate directly and candidly with City officials he is responsible for managing, as well as federal agencies trying to protect the public from national security threats and violent crime,” he wrote, as he accepted Sassoon’s resignation.
Scotten was one of four prosecutors on the case placed on administrative leave Thursday, according to Bove, who said they were being investigated by the US Attorney General’s Office in an internal probe that could lead to their “termination.”
The DOJ’s public integrity section in DC was tasked with taking over the case — but several prosecutors there resigned, too, on Thursday.
The acting chief, three deputy chiefs and a deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division who oversaw the section resigned, according to The Associated Press.
The case was still active and no motion to dismiss had been filed Friday.
Adams has pleaded not guilty to charges that he took $123,000 in travel perks from Turkish nationals in exchange for fast-tracking the opening of the Turkish Consulate in Manhattan.
With Post wires
