The Justice Department appears likely to get the green light to dismiss the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams after the judge overseeing the case acknowledged at a court hearing Wednesday that he has “very little discretion” to interfere with the department’s effort, Politico reports. U.S. District Judge Dale Ho took a measured and gentle approach to questioning Adams, his lawyers and a top Justice Department official, Emil Bove, about the department’s bid to drop the five-count indictment in which Adams is accused of bribery and other corruption charges. Some legal experts and advocacy groups had urged Ho, an appointee of President Joe Biden, to forcefully push back against the Justice Department’s decision to abandon the case — or even to appoint a special prosecutor to take it over. But Ho seemed uninterested in that approach, and he suggested he had limited authority to maintain a case against the wishes of prosecutors. Ho didn’t issue a decision Wednesday, but indicated he would do so soon. After exhaling an audible sigh toward the end of the 80-minute hearing, Ho said, “It’s not in anyone’s interest here for this to drag on.”
Bove’s order to drop the case sparked a crisis at the Justice Department after a wave of career prosecutors resigned rather than stand behind the dismissal of the charges. In their resignation letters, top prosecutors at the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan suggested that Bove was unethically dropping the case in return for the Democratic mayor’s promise to assist President Donald Trump’s policies, and that the administration would wield the threat of revisiting the charges to manipulate Adams into compliance. In an extraordinary reflection of the internal turmoil, Bove, the acting deputy attorney general, was the only person to formally represent the Justice Department at the hearing. It is highly unusual for such a high-ranking DOJ official to represent the department in court, and to do so alone.
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