A federal judge decided on Feb. 21 to delay the corruption trial for New York City Mayor Eric Adams and appointed a special lawyer to advise him on how to handle the Justice Department’s controversial request to drop the charges against him.
Judge Dale E. Ho’s ruling means it’ll be at least a few weeks before he decides whether to grant the request to dismiss the case against the mayor, who is facing serious legal challenges.
During a hearing on Feb. 19, Acting Deputy U.S. Attorney General Emil Bove defended the request to drop the charges, pointing to an executive order from President Donald Trump on criminal justice priorities. He argued that the charges could be reinstated later, which led some critics to suggest that Adams might have to carry out Trump’s controversial plans for rounding up undocumented New Yorkers if he wanted to avoid prosecution.
Bove called the request to dismiss “virtually unreviewable in this courtroom.”
Adams was indicted last September, accused of accepting over $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and travel perks from a Turkish official and business leaders looking to influence him when he was Brooklyn’s borough president. He’s also facing multiple challengers in the upcoming Democratic primary this June.
To help decide whether to grant the request, Judge Ho appointed Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general, to present arguments on the matter. Ho also asked for more information about the legal standards for dismissing charges and whether it would be possible to reinstate them later. The judge set deadlines for briefs to be filed by March 7 and, if needed, oral arguments will happen on March 14. Adams won’t have to attend the future hearings.
Bove’s initial request last week to then-interim U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon to drop the charges against Adams was rejected, and she resigned. Several prosecutors, including five senior ones from the Justice Department in Washington, also resigned in protest before Bove made his request to dismiss the case.
Meanwhile, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on Thursday that she won’t immediately use her power to remove Adams from office, as she believes doing so could cause “disruption and chaos” and would be undemocratic.
