A Manhattan federal judge signaled on Friday that he won’t rubber stamp the Trump DOJ’s effort to drop the prosecution of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, part of an allegedly corrupt quid pro quo acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove hammered out to secure Adams’ cooperation with an immigration crackdown in the five boroughs.
U.S. District Judge Dale Ho for the Southern District of New York said in a Friday order that he would wait before ruling on whether to approve a motion to dismiss. Ho appointed an amicus to argue against the government’s and Adams’ position that the case should be dismissed.
That amicus attorney is Paul Clement, a former Bush administration solicitor general and conservative legal maven. He’s a lawyer who brings a tremendous amount of experience arguing at the circuit and Supreme Court level, and who has conservative bona fides that are difficult to match.
For Ho, the decision was either to approve the motion to dismiss the case or to appoint an attorney to oppose both the Trump administration’s and Adams’ defense team’s motions.
As Ho articulated it in the Friday order, Clement is there to argue the opposing side: he’ll “assist with [the court]’s decision-making via an adversarial process.”
It’s a somewhat comical blow to the DOJ and Adams’ defense team that could force them to keep arguing the case for at least several more weeks. Ho adjourned the trial, scheduled for April, in his order, and waived Adams’ requirement to appear at future hearings.
But Ho’s decision sets up a situation in which the Trump DOJ and Adams’ legal team, represented in part by Trump Org ethics adviser Bill Burck, will spend the next several weeks arguing against one of the country’s top GOP lawyers.
After the Trump DOJ moved to dismiss the case, multiple federal prosecutors resigned in protest. Danielle Sassoon, the former acting top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, described the motion to dismiss as appearing to be part of a “quid pro quo” in which Adams would receive temporary relief from prosecution in exchange for cooperating with Trump policies.
The DOJ, represented solely by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, told Ho in a hearing on Wednesday that that was not the case. Adams had told the judge under oath earlier in the hearing that he had received no threat or inducement to agree with the motion to dismiss without prejudice. The motion would allow the government to refile on the same charges against Adams at a later date.
Ho ordered Clement and his new opponents, the Trump DOJ and Adams’ attorneys, to address a few questions in briefing over the next few weeks. That includes whether Ho can consider documents other than the motion to dismiss in making his ruling, how much latitude he has to consider dismissal, how far he can inquire before ruling, whether he can dismiss with prejudice, and what might happen were he to deny the motion to dismiss.
