‘It was never going to be me’: How Trump’s DOJ sparked a crisis and mass resignations over the Eric Adams case
CNN
The morning after the mass resignation of prosecutors sparked a crisis inside the Trump Justice Department, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove led a meeting with the Justice Department’s public integrity section. His message: they had to choose one career lawyer to file a dismissal of the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, according to three people briefed on the meeting.
The morning after the mass resignation of prosecutors sparked a crisis inside the Trump Justice Department, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove led a meeting with the Justice Department’s public integrity section. His message: They had to choose one career lawyer to file a dismissal of the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, according to three people briefed on the meeting. Bove didn’t make an explicit threat to fire anyone for refusing – but Thursday’s trail of resignations from prosecutors in New York and the public integrity unit made clear the stakes of the demand. After Friday’s meeting with Bove, the public integrity lawyers met separately to discuss a strategy. A mass resignation was among the options that was considered, but in the end, most coalesced around picking one person to file the dismissal as a way to end the stand-off, two of the people briefed said. Late Friday, Bove, along with prosecutors Ed Sullivan and Antoinette Bacon, entered the filing that could end the case after an extraordinary wave of resignations from the Southern District of New York and the Justice Department public integrity section that’s shaken the foundation of a Trump administration that says it wants to end the “weaponization” of DOJ. Over the past 36 hours, seven prosecutors in New York and Washington – including the Trump-installed acting US attorney in the Southern District of New York and the top career prosecutors overseeing public corruption cases – have resigned rather than carry out the order to dismiss the corruption case against Adams, a Democrat. The prosecutors have decried Bove’s Monday order to drop the charges – which cited in part Adams’ role as mayor helping the Trump administration combat illegal immigration – as a bargain amounting to a “quid pro quo.” The prosecutors who resigned in New York were not Biden appointees. The acting US attorney for the Southern District, Danielle Sassoon, who was elevated by Trump, clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. And Assistant US Attorney Hagan Scotten, a line prosecutor who resigned in a blistering letter Friday, once clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday to develop policy recommendations to expand access to and affordability of in vitro fertilization.
The Trump administration ordered legal service providers working with unaccompanied migrant children to stop their work, according to a memo obtained by CNN.
Louis DeJoy, the head of the US Postal Service, intends to step down, the federal agency said Tuesday, after a nearly five-year tenure marked by the coronavirus pandemic, surges in mail-in election ballots and efforts to stem losses through cost and service cuts.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston was forced to close Tuesday due to the “sudden dismissal of federal employees,” the library’s foundation said in a statement to CNN.
Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro has been charged in connection with an attempted coup d’état, according to documents filed by prosecutors Tuesday evening.
A federal judge considering whether to indefinitely block President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender service members described it on Tuesday as having “unadulterated animus” toward transgender Americans.
Argentine President Javier Milei has defended himself for promoting a cryptocurrency whose value collapsed within hours of its launch, likening those who invested in the token after his endorsement to gamblers at casinos.
A federal judge declined on Tuesday to temporarily block Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency from accessing federal data systems at a slew of executive branch agencies.
A Maryland court on Tuesday ordered a blogger known as Ziz who leads a cultlike group connected to six killings held without bail.
As President Donald Trump orders federal workers to return to the office, he spent the fourth straight day at home here at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
The federal judge overseeing the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams has scheduled a hearing Wednesday to consider the Justice Department’s controversial motion to dismiss the charges.
Brazil’s government on Tuesday approved joining OPEC+, a group of major oil-exporting nations, signaling the country’s evolution into a major oil state just nine months ahead of hosting the United Nations’ annual climate summit.
The Trump administration has quietly fired multiple members of the “privacy team” and other officials from the office that oversees the hiring of federal workers, a move that limits outside access to government records related to the security clearances granted to Elon Musk and his associates, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.