On Friday, a federal prosecutor little known outside New York legal circles sent a 350-word resignation letter that bluntly explained why the Trump administration is facing the largest mass resignation of Justice Department lawyers since Watergate.
In resigning, Hagan Scotten, who’d been one of the lead prosecutors in the federal corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, succinctly described the core issue that has now led a total of seven federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Washington to quit in protest. They have questioned multiple aspects of an order from Attorney General Pam Bondi and her acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, to drop the charges against Adams.
But Scotten’s letter highlights a core issue. Bondi and Bove — and, through them, President Donald Trump — are not permanently dropping the charges against Adams. They are planning to dismiss the indictment “without prejudice,” a legal maneuver that would allow federal prosecutors to restore the charges against Adams at any time — for instance, if he were to stop cooperating with Trump’s immigration policies.
Scotten was citing an issue that Danielle R. Sassoon, the now-former acting U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, raised in her own resignation letter to Bondi this week. Sassoon described what she said “amounted to a quid pro quo” that Adams’ attorney, Alex Spiro, had made in a meeting with her, Bove and other prosecutors on Jan 31. According to Sassoon, Spiro suggested that if the corruption charges against Adams were dropped, the mayor would help the Trump administration’s crackdown on migrants. (Spiro said in a statement, “The idea that there was a quid pro quo is a total lie.”)
Longstanding Justice Department guidelines bar prosecutors from using the threat of federal criminal prosecution to blackmail Americans — from ordinary citizens to powerful elected officials — into carrying out their wishes.
In his resignation, Scotten nodded to these guidelines and said that such an agreement, ultimately, would put Adams, the mayor of the country’s largest city, at the legal mercy of the Trump administration.
“No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives,” Scotten wrote. “Our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way.”
On Friday, Adams appeared on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” with Trump border czar Tom Homan, who offered a colorful version of the kind of scenario the departing prosecutors have been worried about.
“If he doesn’t come through,” Homan said of Adams’ promise to allow federal immigration agents to operate at the city’s Rikers Island jail, “I’ll be back in New York City and we won’t be sitting on the couch. I’ll be in his office, up his butt saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’"
In a statement Friday afternoon, Justice Department chief of staff Chad Mizelle said, “The decision to dismiss the indictment of Eric Adams is yet another indication that this DOJ will return to its core function of prosecuting dangerous criminals, not pursuing politically motivated witch hunts. The fact that those who indicted and prosecuted the case refused to follow a direct command is further proof of the disordered and ulterior motives of the prosecutors. Such individuals have no place at DOJ.”
Scotten, who clerked for two Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and then-D.C. Circuit Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh, said he was not acting out of partisanship or dislike for Trump but that he believed Bove’s call for the charges to be dropped was a mistake.
“Some will view the mistake you are committing here in the light of their generally negative views of the new Administration,” he wrote. “I do not share those views. I can even understand how a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal.”
He then questioned whether Bove, or any other administration lawyer, had advised Trump of the dangers of filing a motion to dismiss the charges against Adams “without prejudice” and then use them as leverage against the mayor.
“If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion,” Scotten wrote. “But it was never going to be me.”
“Please consider this my resignation,” he added. “It has been an honor to serve as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.”
FULL TEXT OF SCOTTEN'S LETTER:
Mr. Bove,
I have received correspondence indicating that I refused your order to move to dismiss the indictment against Eric Adams without prejudice, subject to certain conditions, including the express possibility of reinstatement of the indictment. That is not exactly correct. The U.S. Attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon, never asked me to file such a motion, and I therefore never had an opportunity to refuse. But I am entirely in agreement with her decision not to do so, for the reasons stated in her February 12, 2025 letter to the Attorney General.
In short, the first justification for the motion—that Damian Williams's role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence, and pursued under four different U.S. attorneys is so weak as to be transparently pretextual. The second justification is worse. No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.
There is a tradition in public service of resigning in a last-ditch effort to head off a serious mistake. Some will view the mistake you are committing here in the light of their generally negative views of the new Administration. I do not share those views. I can even understand how a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal. But any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.
Please consider this my resignation. It has been an honor to serve as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.
Yours truly,
Hagan Scotten
Assistant United States Attorney
Southern District of New York
