The Justice Department often defers prosecution in exchange for help with administration policies.
The Justice Department decided last week to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. That prompted the interim U.S. attorney overseeing the case, Danielle Sassoon, to object and ultimately to resign, followed by more resignations in the U.S. attorney’s office and the Adams administration.
Given the weight of the evidence against Mr. Adams, and the apparently political motivations for dropping his case, we view Ms. Sassoon’s decision as reflecting a principled commitment to her oath of office rather than the sort of “insubordination and apparent misconduct” charged by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove in accepting her resignation. But far too much of the commentary on this controversy has taken at face value the notion that letting defendants off for crimes in exchange for following the federal executive’s policy preferences is unprecedented—or, in the words of another resigning Justice Department lawyer, Hagan Scotten, “that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens.”
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James R. Copland is a senior fellow and director of legal policy at the Manhattan Institute. He is the author of “The Unelected: How an Unaccountable Elite is Governing America.” Follow him on Twitter here. Rafael Mangual is the Nick Ohnell Fellow and head of research for the Policing and Public Safety Initiative at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. He is also the author of Criminal (In)Justice: What the Push for Decarceration and Depolicing Gets Wrong and Who It Hurts Most.
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