Two top Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have begun an investigation into the Justice Department’s request to drop federal criminal charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York.
They accused the department of covering up a quid pro quo agreement between the Trump administration and the mayor.
In a letter on Sunday to Attorney General Pam Bondi, the lawmakers, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Jasmine Crockett of Texas, cited an account provided by Danielle Sassoon, who resigned as the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan over the department’s request. They said her resignation letter indicated that the administration may have agreed to “a blatant and illegal quid pro quo” with Mr. Adams: It would seek to have the case dropped, and Mr. Adams would assist in carrying out the administration’s immigration policy.
“Not only did the Department of Justice attempt to pressure career prosecutors into carrying out this illegal quid pro quo; it appears that Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove was personally engaged in a cover-up by destroying evidence and retaliating against career prosecutors who refused to follow his illegal and unethical orders,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter.
They added, “We write to demand that you immediately put an end to the cover-up and retaliation and provide documents and information about these disturbing accounts to Congress.”
Ms. Sassoon was one of seven federal prosecutors who resigned over the department’s move to drop the corruption charges against Mr. Adams. A federal judge delayed a ruling on the request last month.
Mr. Adams was indicted in September on five counts, including bribery, conspiracy and campaign finance violations, and pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
In her resignation letter, Ms. Sassoon said that Mr. Adams’s legal team had proposed a quid pro quo to Justice Department officials in the form of “an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for dismissal of his case.” Mr. Adams has denied that accusation.
At one meeting, she said, Mr. Bove admonished a member of her staff for taking notes and ordered those notes to be turned over at the end of the meeting. On Sunday, Mr. Raskin and Ms. Crockett wrote in their letter that Ms. Sassoon’s account suggests that “Mr. Bove was personally involved in orchestrating a cover-up.”
In their letter, the lawmakers said the department had “strayed far from its principles of equal justice under the law by dismissing a serious criminal public corruption matter in exchange for assistance with the White House’s immigration priorities.”
They requested that the Justice Department turn over documentation related to the case from the last several months, including any communication involving the White House; the department, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and the acting deputy attorney general, Mr. Bove; lawyers for Mr. Adams; and President Trump’s transition team.
They also requested any notes the department may possess related to the meeting on Jan. 31, when Ms. Sassoon said Mr. Bove ordered the collection of notes. If those notes were destroyed, the lawmakers requested “the names of individuals who destroyed the notes, as well as the dates, manner and reasons for such destruction.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ms. Bondi had not publicly responded to the letter by Monday night, but she has in the past expressed her support for the move to dismiss the charges against Mr. Adams, as well as a negative opinion of the legal case against the mayor.
In an interview last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, Ms. Bondi derided the indictment against Mr. Adams as politically motivated.
“It was an incredibly weak case filed to make deportation harder; that’s why they did it,” she said. “They took one of the biggest mayors in the country off the playing field in order to protect their sanctuary city.”