Republican President Donald Trump’s Justice Department (DOJ) has instructed Manhattan federal prosecutors to drop Mayor Eric Adams’ five-count corruption indictment, according to a DOJ memo.
In the memo, a copy of which The New York Times posted online Monday evening, the DOJ’s acting second-in-command Emil Bove said the case should be dismissed because of the timing of when Manhattan federal prosecutors brought the charges and “pre-trial publicity that risks impacting potential witnesses and the jury pool.”
Additionally, Bove said the charges were brought too close to Adams’s 2025 mayoral primary and could hinder his ability to implement Trump’s immigration agenda.
Bove said the charges should be dropped “without prejudice,” meaning DOJ could reopen the case. Adams must agree to have the charges dropped without prejudice, then the matter must be reviewed by interim US Attorney for SDNY Danielle Sassoon after the November 2025 general election, according to the Times’ reporting.
Adams’ attorney, Alex Spiro, claimed in a statement that Trump’s DOJ “reevaluated the case and determined it should not go forward.”
“Now, thankfully, the mayor and New York can put this unfortunate and misguided prosecution behind them,” Spiro said.
However, Bove’s memo contradicts Spiro’s statement.
“The Justice Department has reached this conclusion without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based, which are issues on which we defer to the U.S. Attorney’s Office at this time,” the memo reads.
This is a developing story; check with amNY.com for further updates.
