Top DOJ official offers new and different explanation for dropping charges against Eric Adams
The Justice Department on Wednesday offered a contradictory new explanation for why it is seeking to drop charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
The Justice Department on Wednesday offered a striking and contradictory new explanation for why it is seeking to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, with a top official arguing that the charges against the mayor are not well supported in law.
In a thread on X, Chad Mizelle, chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, criticized the basis of the charges against Adams and suggested that the case might not be winnable.
His comments — made shortly before acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove appeared before a federal judge to justify dropping the case — are at odds with what Bove has said previously, that the decision to drop the charges was not based on the evidence or the legal theories in the case. Bove repeated that claim in court Wednesday.
“In the Adams case, SDNY was rolling the dice,” Mizelle wrote, referring to the Southern District of New York, the U.S. attorney’s office that brought the charges. “And given the DOJ’s abysmal history of losing at the Supreme Court, the odds were against the DOJ.”
Mizelle pointed out that the Supreme Court has in recent years issued a series of rulings in public corruption cases that have made it more difficult for prosecutors to prove bribery and related crimes against public officials. He argued that the Adams indictment didn’t meet the new threshold in part because the main “official act” prosecutors alleged he carried out in exchange for favors from the Turkish government happened before he took office as mayor.
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