Member Newsletter
The acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, has submitted her resignation to Attorney General Pam Bondi, an implicit refusal to seek the dismissal of charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, as Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered her to do on Monday. I’ve noted several times over recent days that despite that order, which most people — including me, before this was flagged to me — thought ended the matter, the dismissal hadn’t actually been carried out. A motion to dismiss should have shown up in the trial docket. But it wasn’t. And, as I noted, that suggested they couldn’t find someone in the New York office (SDNY) to carry it out.
Now we have our answer.
I should note Sassoon is not some partisan Democrat lurking in the DOJ bureaucracy. She was chosen by the Trump administration to run the office while Trump’s choice, Jay Clayton, moves through the confirmation process. She’s a former Scalia clerk and a Federalist Society member. So she clearly comes from the conservative legal world, though in fairness, there are other people from that world who have never bowed the knee to Trump.
We will perhaps have a Saturday Night Massacre manque type situation in which Main Justice keeps ordering SDNY to drop the case and firing people, or having them resign, until they finally find someone to do it. In theory they could send someone from DC. But, as I understand it, that’s at least a bit complicated and certainly protracted.
In any case, this is a big deal. The person who initially alerted me to fact that no motion had actually been filed shared with me how the possibility that people in New York might be saying “no” had sent a jolt of hope or inspiration through the thoroughly demoralized lawyer civil servants at the Justice Department who are now reporting to such a brazenly corrupt leadership.
Update: Since I wrote this initial post things have moved fast. After Sassoon resigned they moved on to the head of the Public Integrity Section in DC. He refused/resigned. Then they went to the head of the Criminal Division. He refused/resigned. Bove himself may end up doing this. Worth noting that these are all “actings” — that’s generally someone you choose from the staff to run things while your nominees move through the confirmation process. So these would appear all to be people the Trump politicals chose or were at least comfortable with letting take over on an acting basis.