Once Upon A Time In New York
Let's check in on the Department of Justice
So, we are almost one month into the Psycho Circus that is Trump 2.0, and I thought I would take a quick gander at the goings on at the Department of Justice. Now, throughout my life I have been told that while the Department of Justice (DoJ) is led by a presidential appointee (the Attorney General) and is part of the Executive Branch, it is an independent agency whose responsibility is to the United States of America. Attorneys at DoJ are not the President’s personal legal team, they work for the people.
A common refrain during both the campaign and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s confirmation process was that Trump 2.0 was going to “fight to turn back the weaponization of government”; a promise to remove the politicization of the Justice department. 1 So, naturally, one would expect that this administration would refrain from any sort of retribution against Trump’s myriad enemies, right? And there would be no way that the Trump DoJ would engage in any sort of political shenanigans either.
Well, in case you have never heard this, with Trump every accusation is a confession. Throughout the campaign, when he said he was going to remove the weaponization of the DoJ, he was really telling us that this was precisely what he planned to do.
Enter Eric Adams
New York Mayor Eric Adams is, well, a piece of work. Even before his indictments for multiple corruption charges, he was extremely unpopular in the city. New Yorkers were decidedly upset with Adams’ budget cuts, which severely cut a host of city services. They also did not approve of his handling of the influx of immigrants and asylum seekers to the city. Still others lamented the sharp rise in “Stop & Frisk” activity by the NYPD, a practice that was essentially stopped under Mayor Bill de Blasio and resulted in a dramatic reduction in crime.
In September of 2024, Adams, a former police captain, was indicted on 5 Federal counts, including accepting bribes and seeking illegal campaign contributions from foreign interests. Despite the seriousness of the charges and amid many calls from prominent Democrats to resign, Adams remained in office and vowed to fight the charges.
Shortly after Trump won the 2024 election, Adams made a pilgrimage to Grift Central at Mar A Lago, presumably to kiss the ring and see if there was anything Don Trump could do about these pesky charges. Trump, you see, made a big deal about going after Sanctuary Cities with his ICE Gestapo. NYC is one of those cities, and maybe Adams could give Old Donny some good old fashioned Quo for a bit of Trump’s Quid.
Fast forward to Monday of this week (February 10, 2025) and lo and behold, the United States Department of Justice2 announced that they had instructed the US Attorney in the Southern District of New York to withdraw the indictments against Adams. In return for the withdrawal of the indictment, Adams agreed to assist the Trump administration with immigration enforcement and deportation actions in New York City.
The stated reasons for withdrawing the case don’t even make legal sense. the DoJ isn’t claiming that the charges are without merit. Instead, they claim that the charges are interfering with Adams’ efforts to implement Trump’s immigration policies. Additionally, DoJ is arguing that the indictment was filed too close to the NYC Mayoral Election. In November.3 In fact, since the charges were withdrawn, rather than dismissed, Justice could reinstate the charges after the election. Perhaps they would be inclined to do so if they feel that Adams does not do enough to help them out between now and then.
Just in case there was any doubt that fuckery is afoot, Adams appeared on Fox and Friends Friday morning alongside Immigration Gruppenführer Tom Homan, yukking it up while discussing their criming4:
We Have Seen This Dance Before
In any sane time and with any sane government, the blatantly obvious nature of the DoJ announcement would have resulted in an immediate firestorm for both Adams and the DoJ, not to mention Trump. A functioning Congress would immediately convene hearings to determine who knew what and when, and AG Bondi would be at grave risk of Impeachment. But we don’t live in sane times, so this activity barely cracked the surface of legacy media news coverage on Monday. It may have even disappeared into the river of shit that is a typical news cycle during a Trump presidency except for the cascade of insanity that has come out of all of this.
The first domino to fall was the news on Thursday that acting US Attorney Danielle Sassoon had resigned from her post rather than file the motion to withdraw the case. Before doing so, the former clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia and member in good standing of the Federalist Society5 sent an eight-page letter to AG Bondi, explaining why she would not file the motion. After her resignation, Main Justice in DC pulled the case out of NY and attempted to assign it to several attorneys in the Home Office. Not one agreed to do so, resulting in a total of five high-level Justice Department officials resigning. One of the officials minced no words in his resignation, getting off this epic blast:
If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.
As absolutely insane as all of this was, the true bombshell would be dropped Thursday night when the New York Times reported that Emil Bove, the Deputy Attorney General, coached Eric Adams’ attorneys in how to challenge his own Justice Department’s case.
The drama continued on to Friday morning, where two more Justice Department officials resigned. This resulted in Bove locking all of the remaining attorneys in a room, telling them that they had one hour to produce two attorneys to sign the motion or they would all be fired. One thing to point out, either AG Bondi or DAG Bove could file this motion themselves. They are trying to assert themselves by forcing a line prosecutor to do this.
Fallout
At the time of this writing, it appears that Bove did in fact find someone to file the motion to withdraw. There is a growing chorus of Democratic voices calling for Adams to step down, which he has continually indicated he would not do. Others are demanding that New York Governor Kathy Hochul remove Adams from office, which is possible under New York law. The entire event led to a sometimes-spirited discussion amongst some friends of mine regarding what should happen. Some feel that since Adams has not been convicted of anything, there is no legitimate reason for Hochul to remove Adams, and removing a Mayor just because he is doing things you don’t like is a slippery slope. Others feel that there is no way to convict him, since the government pulled the charges. I can see arguments for both points, but it, like so many other things we are experiencing right now, is a complex question.
One disturbing consideration is that the Southern District of New York is one of the premier US Attorney’s offices in the country. SDNY has always been the watchdog over Wall Street, ensuring that legal malfeasance is prevented and keeping Americas’ financial system safe. Could all of this upheaval significantly damage the District’s ability to perform this important work? It’s no secret that Trump and his Project 2025 crew want to destroy the government, so perhaps this is yet another wrench they are throwing into the gears.
Man, I really wouldn’t mind politics being boring again. How about you?
As a reminder, the DoJ under Biden was so politicized that they dragged their feet on any and all cases related to Trump, but fast tracked a case against the President’s son, Hunter Biden. So yeah, weaponized. Also: The DoJ is supposed to investigate crimes. If you are criming, you can’t call them charging you weaponization.
A completely independent, non-partisan and non-political governmental department. Right?
Remember, the charges were filed nearly six months ago, in September of 2024, a full 14 months before the Mayoral election.
I will never link to Musk’s cesspool of a site, but I won’t post a screenshot that I have not verified to be real.
So obiously a Deep State Radical Lib