NEW YORK >> Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, Danielle Sassoon, and five high-ranking Justice Department officials resigned Thursday after she refused an order to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams — a stunning escalation in a dayslong standoff over the Trump administration prioritizing political aims over criminal culpability.

Sassoon, a Republican who was interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, accused the department of acceding to a “quid pro quo” — dropping the case to ensure Adams’ help with Trump’s immigration agenda — and said she was “confident” the Democratic mayor committed the crimes spelled out in his indictment, and even more. Before the showdown, Sassoon said, prosecutors had been preparing to charge Adams with destroying evidence and instructing others to destroy evidence and provide false information to the FBI.

“I remain baffled by the rushed and superficial process by which this decision was reached,” Sassoon wrote Trump’s new attorney general, Pam Bondi, on Wednesday. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter.

The acting deputy U.S. attorney general, former Trump personal lawyer Emil Bove, had ordered on Monday that the Adams case be dropped. He told Sassoon, in a letter accepting her resignation that she was “incapable of fairly and impartially” reviewing the circumstances of the case. Bove placed case prosecutors on administrative leave and said they and Sassoon would be subject to internal investigations.

In Bove’s letter, also obtained by the AP, he said the Justice Department in Washington would file a motion to drop Adams’ charges and bar “further targeting” of the mayor. As of Thursday evening, Adams’ case was still active and no new paperwork had been filed.

The department’s public integrity section, which had been asked to take over the case, was also roiled by resignations.

The acting chief, three deputy chiefs and a deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division who oversaw the section resigned, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

Adams pleaded not guilty last September to charges that while in his prior role as Brooklyn borough president, he accepted over $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks such as expensive flight upgrades, luxury hotel stays and even a trip to a bathhouse from people wanting to buy his influence. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Federal agents had also been investigating some of Adams’ aides. It was unclear what will happen to that part of the investigation.

Sassoon says ‘quid pro quo’ at play

In a memo Monday, Bove had directed Sassoon to drop the case as soon as practicable, so the mayor of America’s largest city could help with Trump’s immigration crackdown and could himself campaign for reelection unencumbered by criminal charges. Adams faces multiple challengers in June’s primary.

On Wednesday, after two days without action or public statements from Sassoon’s office, Bondi said she would “look into” why the case had yet to be dismissed. That same day, Sassoon laid out her objections to dropping the case in an eight-page letter to the attorney general.

Sassoon accused Adams’ lawyers of offering what amounted to a “quid pro quo” — the mayor’s assistance to the White House on immigration if the case were dropped — when they met with Justice Department officials in Washington last month.

“It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment,” Sassoon wrote.

Adams’ lawyer, Alex Spiro, said Thursday the “quid pro quo” claim was a “total lie.”

“We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us,” Spiro wrote in an email to the AP. “We were asked if the case had any bearing on national security and immigration enforcement and we truthfully answered it did.”

No legal basis for dismissal noted

The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York has a track record of tackling Wall Street malfeasance, political corruption and international terrorism. It has a tradition of independence from Washington, earned it the nickname “the sovereign district.”

Matthew Podolsky, who has spent a decade in the office, was made the new acting U.S. attorney after Sassoon’s departure. He was named Sassoon’s top deputy only days ago.

Bove’s directive to drop the case was all the more remarkable because Bove had been a longtime prosecutor and supervisor in the Southern District, and because department leaders are historically reluctant to intervene in cases where charges have been brought. Bove, who went into private practice before rejoining government, represented Trump as a defense lawyer in his recent criminal cases.

Bove’s memo steered clear of any legal basis for the dismissal. His emphasis on political considerations, rather than evaluating the strength of the evidence, alarmed some career prosecutors who said it was a departure from long-standing norms.

Sassoon, a former clerk for the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was not the prosecutor who charged Adams. That was then-U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, who stepped down after Trump won reelection.

Sassoon joined the Southern District in 2016. A graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School, she clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court and is a member of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group. She had only been tapped to serve as acting U.S. attorney on Jan. 21, the day after Trump took office.

Her role was intended to be temporary. Trump in November nominated Jay Clayton, the former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, to the post, an appointment that must be confirmed by the Senate. That has not happened yet.

Prosecutors said they had proof that Adams personally directed political aides to solicit foreign donations and disguise them to help the campaign qualify for a city program that provides a generous, publicly-funded match for small dollar donations. Under federal law, foreign nationals are banned from contributing to U.S. election campaigns.

As recently as Jan. 6, prosecutors had indicated their investigation remained active, writing in court papers that they continued to “uncover additional criminal conduct by Adams.”

Adams: ICE can operate at city jail

Meanwhile, Adams says he will allow federal immigration officials to operate at the city’s Rikers Island jail following a meeting Thursday with Trump’s border czar.

Adams said he will issue an executive order reestablishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence at the complex — one of the nation’s largest and most notorious lockups — as had been the case under prior administrations.

The Democrat said ICE agents would be focused on assisting the correction department’s intelligence bureau in criminal investigations, particularly those focused on violent criminals and gangs.

“As I have always said, immigrants have been crucial in building our city and will continue to be key to our future success, but we must fix our long-broken immigration system,” Adams said in a statement. “That is why I have been clear that I want to work with the new federal administration, not war with them, to find common ground and make better the lives of New Yorkers.”

Opponents dismissed the move as a “needless concession” and “legally dubious.”

“ICE’s presence on Rikers serves no legitimate purpose, and opens the door to unlawful collusion between local law enforcement and federal immigration officials in violation of our city’s well-established sanctuary protections,” Zach Ahmad, senior policy counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union, said.

Trump’s border czar Thomas Homan argued that having an ICE presence at local jails is crucial to removing violent criminals who have entered the country illegally.

ICE has long had a contentious relationship with New York, which has rules and laws limiting police cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

Immigration officials, for example, aren’t able to request city jails hold people wanted for civil immigration law violations past when they would ordinarily be released from custody, under city policy.

New York City has also passed measures that curtail ICE’s access to public schools and other city properties.

Adams, who faces a Democratic primary in June, has said he favors loosening these so-called sanctuary policies, but he doesn’t have the broad power to do so as mayor.

This report includes information from the New York Times.