Justice Department Massacre!

The Fed Soc people are resigning. *The FED SOC PEOPLE.*

Oh boy breaking right now, Barb McQuade says that “DOJ leadership has put all Public Integrity Section lawyers into a room with 1 hour to decide who will dismiss Adams indictment or else all will be fired.” Update: Reuters reports that someone has volunteered as tribute.

WHAT THE FUCK AND holy ghost of Richard Nixon! Looks like we’ve got another Saturday Night Massacre, (at least) seven people have resigned from the Justice Department, instead of following Pam Bondi and (acting) number two Emil Bove’s orders to drop charges against Eric Adams. Now with an extra side of collective punishment/the prisoner’s dilemma/game of “who’s going to be the Bork?”! Can’t Pammy Jo or Bove just do it themselves? Too embarrassing? But by now the “this is not political” horse has already left the barn, jogged around the block and given an interview to Fox & Friends.

(The original Justice Department “Saturday Night” massacre was during Watergate in 1973, when Tricky Dick tried to fire special counsel Archibald Cox for refusing Nixon’s demand that he drop a subpoena for Nixon’s White House tapes. But the two guys he sent to fire Cox, Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, resigned instead. And Robert Bork ended up firing Cox.)

So already this massacre is more than twice as big, and it hasn’t even been a month with this administration, that is what a bag-of-Richards they are.

To rewind, it’s sure been a fast-moving week in the Eric Adams world:

On Monday, Emil Bove, the current (acting) Justice Department number two (heh), demanded that the DOJ dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, in a letter that was wantonly quid pro quo-y: “the pending prosecution has unduly restricted Mayor Adams' ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior Administration.” And he demanded they dismiss the charges without prejudice, so that charges could be brought again if Adams refused to do any future bidding. Just get on your knees and worship the emperor, and all of your legal problems can poof, go away!

Or, as the suckup New York Times calls it, “an extraordinary shattering of norms” and “a highly unorthodox argument.” Washington Post: “highly unusual.” Eye roll.

The corruption Adams was allegedly up to was mighty balls-out; he was charged with five counts of taking at least $100,000 worth of goodies and straw-donor bucks from Turkish officials over the course of almost a decade. Which he helpfully documented in text messages that he tried to hide by changing the password to his phone then claiming he forgot what the new password was! Subtle. The straw donations also let him access $10 million in matching public funds for his 2021 campaign. And it appears that prosecutors had convened a second grand jury in January that was considering an obstruction charge.

BUUUTT the (acting) US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), Danielle R. Sassoon, who is so far right she clerked for Scalia, is a member of the Federalist Society, and was appointed by Trump just three weeks ago, refused to go along. When your scheme is too corrupt for somebody with that resume, you know it’s bad.

In a letter to AG “Pamela Jo” Bondi, Sassoon said she couldn’t in good faith and with a straight face argue to a judge that the case should be dismissed because it was a weak case, or prosecutors misbehaved, or that dismissing it would be in the public interest, especially while Bove was over here saying out loud that dismissing charges would be in exchange for Adams doing the Trump administration’s bidding. Bove also lamely argued that Adams’s case was election interference because the next election is nine months away, LOL. Oh, and Sassoon said that in a meeting, Bove criticized one of her staff members for taking notes and collected those notes at the end.

Holy Stringer Bell!

Anyway, Sassoon offered to resign instead of trying to peddle that “breathtaking and dangerous precedent” bullshit, and that is what she ultimately did.

And Bove responded with a bitchy letter, reported the WSJ:

Under your leadership, the office has demonstrated itself to be incapable of fairly and impartially reviewing the circumstances of this prosecution. [...] The Justice Department will not tolerate the insubordination and apparent misconduct reflected in the approach that you and your office have taken in this matter.

INSUBORDINATION, it is this administration’s new favorite word! Elon is surely this minute find-and-replacing INSUBORDINATION anywhere the term “separation of powers” appears in government documents with his anti-woke AI.

So anyway Bove and Pammy Jo tried to reassign the case to the public-integrity unit so they could drown it in a bucket. BUUTT the (acting) head of the division, John Keller, resigned, and so did Kevin Driscoll, the top official leading the criminal division (not to be confused with Brian Driscoll, head of the FBI, who’s been leading the anti-Bove resistance there). And then another three officials resigned. And so far, no motion for dismissal has been filed in federal court, so guess Pammy Jo is still trying to find someone willing to do it.

Oh, and Friday morning a seventh resignation, Hagan Scotten, the lead prosecutor on the Adams investigation, writing in his letter:

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.

Yeah, if you haven’t noticed by now, “ordered liberty” is the opposite of what the Trump/Musk administration is trying to get going here.

In gratitude, Adams said he’d put ICE agents in Rikers Island, and appeared on “Fox & Friends” with border czar Tom Homan like some kind of butt puppet. Homan’s words, not mine!

In case there were any doubts about this being a quid-pro-quo/hostage situation. Just two months ago, Adams was singing a different tune.

“I'm not a supporter of mass deportation. […] This is inhumane. […] This is a sanctuary city. Those laws are in place. I want people to continue to go to school. I want people to continue to use our hospital systems. I want people to continue to know that if they're a victim of a crime, they should report those criminal actions against them.”

But sometime between November and when he showed up to Trump’s inauguration, it seems Republican Jesus touched his heart, or perhaps somewhere else. He also has lawyers Alex Spiro and William A. Burck, who have defended Elon Musk against SEC complaints and that “pedo guy” defamation lawsuit, and also Robert Kraft in that Orchard Day Spa wank-job solicitation case.

And as of now, Adams is still the Mayor of New York. Governor Kathy Hochul, what are you waiting for? Last October almost 70 percent of New Yorkers wanted the guy gone. She could suspend him for 30 days this minute, as long as she gives him a copy of the charges and an opportunity to be heard in his defense. Then Public Advocate Jumaane Williams would be mayor. He’s a self-described Democratic socialist, so maybe that is the reason?

Hochul told Rachel Maddow last night, “This just happened. I need some time to process this and figure out the right approach.” No mayor has ever been removed in New York, and no official has been removed since then-Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt dismissed New York County Sheriff Thomas Farley, a Tammany Hall leader who allegedly grafted more than $360,000 in 1931 dollars (or almost $6 million) from kickbacks in a gambling club he owned.

Pressure is growing on her to do that, especially now that prosecutors are being collectively punished by being locked in a room, so, Judge Judy watch-tapping gif!

[WSJ gift link]

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