Danielle Sassoon, a lawyer with impeccable academic and professional credentials and unquestionable conservative bona fides, represents a true profile in courage in her refusal as acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York to file for dismissal of federal charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Sassoon’s Feb. 12 letter to newly confirmed Attorney General Pam Bondi explaining her reasons will in our opinion be included in the long list of historically important documents that demonstrate what America is supposed to represent.
Sassoon resigned rather than participate in the obvious ploy by the administration of President Donald Trump to put Adams’ criminal prosecution on (perhaps indefinite) hold in return for his cooperation in helping U.S. immigration agents find undocumented migrants in New York. Emil Bove, Trump’s former personal attorney and now acting deputy attorney general, accepted Sassoon’s resignation with a responding letter that was threatening in tone, saying her “conduct” would be “evaluated.”
What ramifications such a threat means for Sassoon are unclear, since she’s left the Justice Department’s employ. But at just age 38 with a long career ahead of her, such words no doubt are chilling. Five other Justice Department lawyers also have refused to file for dismissal of Adams’ case, leaving Bove to hunt for someone in the department to do the job.
These are difficult days to be a federal lawyer.
Before we go on, let’s briefly outline Sassoon’s career to date. A graduate of Yale Law School, she clerked for two staunchly conservative judges, J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia and the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. She is a registered Republican and member of the conservative and influential Federalist Society, to which all six Supreme Court justices nominated by Republican presidents have ties, including Chief Justice John Roberts. She joined the U.S. attorney’s office in New York in 2016 and has helped prosecute high-profile murder cases, as well as the 2024 fraud conviction of crypto magnate Sam Bankman-Fried.
Her conservative credentials, in other words, shouldn’t be questioned.
In her lengthy and persuasively argued letter, Sassoon established that no one, including Bove, had questioned the strength of the case against Adams. She also wrote that Bove in a meeting with her and other lawyers involved in Adams’ prosecution explicitly compared dismissing the charges to the 2022 agreement between Russia and the U.S. in which American professional basketball player Brittney Griner was freed. In exchange, the administration of President Joe Biden released Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, accused of supplying weapons to al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other unsavory parties.
“It is difficult to imagine that the Department wishes to emulate that episode by granting Adams leverage over it akin to Russia’s influence in international affairs,” she wrote.
At least as troubling is that Bove ordered the dismissal of charges against Adams without prejudice, meaning they could be refiled at a later date. So if Adams doesn’t help the Trump administration to its satisfaction on immigration enforcement, he risks being taken back to court.
Bove denied any quid pro quo in his scathing acceptance of Sassoon’s resignation, but the reasoning was made perfectly clear in the recent joint appearance of Adams and Tom Homan, Trump’s immigration-enforcement czar, on the “Fox and Friends” morning show. “If he doesn’t come through,” Homan said of Adams with the mayor sitting right next to him, “I’ll be back in New York City and we won’t be sitting on the couch. I’ll be in his office … saying, ‘Where the hell is this agreement we came to?’”
Given the way that courts work, the Trump team’s side of the bargain with Adams relies on government lawyers willing to lay aside their professional principles to execute this highly questionable deal. Two attorneys have agreed to do so, according to the New York Times.
But it won’t be Sassoon, who gave the country a refresher course on principled bravery during a time when intimidation and threats are the order of the day in the nation’s capital.
“I have always considered it my obligation to pursue justice impartially, without favor to the wealthy or those who occupy important public office, or harsher treatment for the less powerful,” she wrote. She added, “I cannot fulfill my obligations, effectively lead my office in carrying out the Department’s priorities, or credibly represent the Government before the courts, if I seek to dismiss the Adams case on this record.”
We predict Sassoon’s letter will be taught in law schools for years to come. The words are powerful. Sassoon’s action was yet more so.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.