Three more prosecutors resign in aftermath of dismissal of case against NYC mayor

By LARRY NEUMEISTER NEW YORK AP Three more federal prosecutors who had been involved in the now-dismissed corruption episode against New York City Mayor Eric Adams resigned on Tuesday saying they felt pressured into admitting wrongdoing or regret as a condition for being reinstated to their jobs Related Articles RFK Jr plans to phase out artificial dyes from the US food supply Beyond Ivy League RFK Jr s NIH slashed science funding across states that backed Trump RFK Jr struggles to approach frustrated supporters and a demanding boss With the perimeter quiet Texas ponders spending another billion on territory line prevention Judge extends ban on deportations from Colorado stemming from Trump s use of law We will not confess wrongdoing when there was none Celia Cohen Andrew Rohrbach and Derek Wikstrom wrote in a letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche The three assistant U S attorneys had been placed on leave after a number of prosecutors in New York and Washington refused to follow orders to end the incident against Adams a Democrat The letter was published by several news outlets Its authenticity was established to The Associated Press by a person who received the letter The resignations came the same day that Jay Clayton former chairman of the U S Securities and Exchange Commission was sworn in as the New York office s new top prosecutor Adams was indicted last year accused of taking illegal campaign contributions and passage perks from a Turkish official and others seeking to buy influence when he previously served as Brooklyn borough president In February after President Donald Trump took office the Justice Department ordered then-acting U S attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon to drop the charges against Adams not due to the merits of the matter but rather so the mayor could assist in the Trump administration s immigration agenda Sassoon opted to resign instead as did several other career prosecutors who objected to the criminal occurrence being dismissed for political reasons The affair was eventually dismissed in April Cohen Rohrbach and Wikstrom wrote in their resignation letter that it had become clear to them that one of the preconditions Blanche placed on them returning to work was to express regret and admit chosen wrongdoing by the Office in connection with the refusal to move to dismiss the occurrence The new leaders of the Justice Department they wrote had decided that obedience supersedes all else requiring us to abdicate our legal and ethical obligations in favor of directions from Washington That is wrong Blanche revealed in a report that there was nothing illegal or unethical about dismissing the flawed prosecution against Mayor Adams Any suggestion to the contrary by anybody especially former federal prosecutors is wrong and disingenuous he wrote Emil Bove then the acting deputy attorney general had argued previously that Adams was being prosecuted because he had criticized former President Joe Biden s immigration policies In dismissing the situation Judge Dale E Ho noted that the record evidenced the prosecutors who worked on the circumstance had followed all guidelines There is no evidence zero that they had any improper motives Ho wrote in his ruling Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this summary from Washington