NEW YORK — Three senior Justice Department officials in New York and Washington resigned Thursday instead of complying with orders from the Trump administration to dismiss the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

The flurry of resignations in protest represents the sharpest rebuke to date of President Donald Trump’s team leading the Justice Department, which has spent its opening weeks in office firing prosecutors connected to the cases against Trump and demanding information about the thousands of FBI agents involved in the investigations of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

In an eight-page letter, Danielle Sassoon quit her post as acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York instead of dropping the Adams case, saying the New York mayor’s attorneys “repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo” to help Trump on immigration if the case was dropped.

After Sassoon said that no prosecutor in the Adams case would sign the dismissal court filing, acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove – one of Trump’s former personal lawyers – turned to the public integrity section at Justice Department headquarters, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The resignations snowballed – Kevin Driscoll, the top career prosecutor in the public integrity section, and John Keller, the acting head of the office, also resigned Thursday rather than carry out the administration’s order to dismiss the case. As many as three additional public integrity prosecutors also tendered their resignations later Thursday, according to two sources.

The Justice Department’s direction to drop the federal corruption case against Adams challenged the independence of the country’s most prestigious US attorney’s office charged with rooting out wrongdoing in the nation’s biggest city. Matthew Podolsky, a career prosecutor, is now acting US attorney.

Sassoon resigned before Bove could carry out plans to fire her, two people familiar with the matter said.

Bove issued the directive to dismiss the case following a recent meeting in Washington at the Justice Department attended by Adams’ attorneys Alex Spiro and William Burck as well as Sassoon, two prosecutors on the Adams case and the head of appeals.

Bove directed prosecutors to drop the case “as soon as is practicable” in a two-page memo Monday. His memo cited the fact that the prosecution “unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime” – making clear the political motivations behind the decision.

Bove, who called for the meeting, asked pointed questions throughout with a focus on what the Trump administration has dubbed the “weaponization” of political foes and whether the case has impeded Adams’ ability to do his job as mayor, according to a source with knowledge of the meeting.

Adams’ legal team argued the looming criminal charges made it difficult for the mayor to lead the city and prepare for trial, plus as much as two months sitting in a courtroom, meant he couldn’t run city government, the person said. They also focused on recent actions by the former US attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, who launched a website and wrote an op-ed that Adams team construed as a nod that he might seek political office, the person said.

Adams’ attorneys asked for an outright dismissal of the case. Several days later, on Monday, Bove issued his directive ordering a dismissal without prejudice, meaning the case could be revived in the future after the mayoral election in November 2025. By then, Trump’s choice to run the US attorney’s office, Jay Clayton, would be confirmed by the Senate and running the office.

There is no date for Clayton’s confirmation yet.

At the White House on Thursday, Trump denied that he personally directed the Justice Department to dismiss the indictment against Adams.

“No, I didn’t,” Trump said. “I know nothing about it. I did not.”

In her resignation letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Sassoon wrote that she was “baffled” by the decision to drop the charges against Adams.

“I remain baffled by the rushed and superficial process by which this decision was reached, in seeming collaboration with Adams’s counsel and without my direct input on the ultimate stated rationales for dismissal,” Sassoon wrote. “Mr. Bove admonished me to be mindful of my obligation to zealously defend the interests of the United States and to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the Administration.”

The US attorney wrote that dismissing the Adams case “will amplify, rather than abate, concerns about weaponization of the Department,” and that Adams is already using the memo to publicly assert his innocence. Sassoon said that her office is prepared to seek a superseding indictment from a new grand jury.

Sassoon, who was chief of appeals before she was put in place by Trump in January, has strong conservative credentials. She is a member of the Federalist Society and clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. She penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal soon after taking over the top job that was critical of President Joe Biden’s pardons.

In her resignation letter, Sassoon also nodded to the meeting between herself, Bove and Adams’ team in late January, saying that Adams’ attorneys “repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.”

Bove wrote in his memo ordering the dismissal of the case that there was no quid pro quo, but cited the mayors’ need to focus on immigration enforcement as a reason to drop the charges.

During that meeting, Sassoon added, Bove “admonished” someone on her team who took notes and collected those notes when the meeting was over.

Sassoon also said that prosecutors in her office were planning to bring additional charges against Adams for allegedly obstructing the investigation by destroying evidence and instructing others to provide false information to the FBI. A former City Hall official is expected to plead guilty, prosecutors have said in court filings, and a businessman involved in the straw donor scheme has already pleaded guilty.

Spiro denies there was any quid pro quo.

“The idea that there was a quid pro quo is a total lie. We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us,” Spiro told CNN on Thursday. “I don’t know what ‘amounted to’ means.”

“We were asked if the case had any bearing on national security and immigration enforcement and we truthfully answered it did,” he added.

The day after being directed to drop the charges against Adams, Sassoon informed Bove on the phone and the attorney general in writing that she would not dismiss the case.

On Wednesday, Sassoon called an “all hands” meeting of prosecutors and staff at the office for 11 a.m. ET, but it was abruptly canceled, people familiar with the matter said.

A little more than 24 hours later, Sassoon submitted her letter to Bondi announcing her resignation. Moments later, around 2 p.m. ET Thursday, Sassoon sent an email to the staff in New York announcing that she tendered her resignation, people familiar with the matter said.

It is not clear if Bove will sign the motion himself asking the judge to dismiss the case. In a letter accepting Sassoon’s resignation sent Thursday, Bove said the case was being transferred to the Justice Department.

“You lost sight of the oath that you took when you started at the Department of Justice by suggesting that you retain discretion to interpret the Constitution in a manner inconsistent with the policies of a democratically elected President and a Senate-confirmed Attorney General,” Bove wrote.

Bove also wrote that two of the attorneys assigned to the case were being placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation, because they were supportive of her refusal to dismiss the case.

“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,” Bove added.

If the Justice Department does move to dismiss the case, it would require the sign-off of Judge Dale Ho, a Biden appointee. He could hold a hearing and draw out additional information before agreeing to the government’s request.

Bove spent nearly a decade as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, and most recently was co-chief of its National Security and International Narcotics unit before leaving the office in 2021.

“The guy was true blue,” said one former prosecutor surprised by his recent directives. The prosecutor said Bove was tapped for some of the office’s most complex, difficult cases because he was “smart, dogged, with great instincts.”

Several former prosecutors say after Bove left the office there was a falling out involving a dispute over whether he could represent a woman charged with allegedly defrauding victims of more than $1 billion. Bove was chief of the unit that investigated her boss in an unrelated matter involving national security. Prosecutors tried to get him removed from the case, arguing in court filings that he shouldn’t be allowed because of a conflict of interest. The judge overseeing the case ultimately agreed that Bove could represent the woman, but with limitations on her defense. Bove ultimately withdrew from the case.

The Justice Department last year brought public corruption charges against Adams in the first prosecution of a sitting mayor in the city’s modern history. Adams pleaded not guilty, and the case was set to go to trial this spring.

The indictment alleged Adams’ illegal actions stretched back to 2014, when he was Brooklyn Borough president. Prosecutors said Adams received luxury travel benefits – including hotel room upgrades, meals and other perks – from a Turkish official. In exchange, prosecutors say, Adams pressured a New York City Fire Department official to grant permits to open a Turkish consular building that had failed to pass inspection.

Adams, who was registered as a Republican in the 1990s, has frequently said the prosecution was politically motivated by his criticism of the Biden administration’s response to an influx of migrant arrivals in the city beginning in the spring of 2022. — CNN