Judge Ho brings up a letter sent by #EricAdams’s defense team to #DOJ officials earlier this month. The letter makes many of the arguments that eventually appeared in #EmilBove’s order to prosecutors seeking to #dismiss the case, &, when they didn’t obey him, the dismissal motion to which he signed his name. Alex Spiro, one of Adams’s lawyers, acknowledges that the government motion echoes arguments he has made for months.
The judge then turns to #EmilBove’s order to the acting US attorney in Manhattan, #DanielleSassoon, instructing her to abandon the case. The judge asks whether Ho can consider what is in the memo, & Bove says “no.” He says that case #law suggests that Ho does not have the discretion to do so, even as he acknowledges whether a judge is entitled to inquire whether the order was made “in bad faith.”
“There is no basis to question my representations to this court,” #EmilBove says, arguing again that the judge cannot consider the memo Bove sent last week to the acting US atty in Manhattan ordering the case’s dismissal.
Bove now addresses the allegations that #EricAdams arranged the dismissal of his case in exchange for his further cooperation with #Trump’s #immigration agenda. He says Judge Ho has already addressed that in the questions he asked the mayor earlier.
There have been at least 2 requests that Judge Ho allow amicus curaie “friend of the court” briefs from outsiders that would argue against the government’s request to drop the charges. One request came from 3 former US attorneys & another came from Common Cause, a good-government advocacy group. The judge just referred to those requests & no surprise #EmilBove indicated he has some objections to them.
Judge Ho asks Alex Spiro, a lawyer for #EricAdams, about his assertion in a letter that Adams did not promise further assistance with federal #immigration efforts in exchange for the case’s abandonment. Spiro says he was responding “to anyone who suggests such a thing, because it never happened.” He offers to swear an oath in court to that effect but Ho does not ask him to do so.
#EmilBove continues to insist that the judge’s questioning of the mayor earlier mooted any talk of a #QuidProQuo arrangement between the government & the mayor. “You have a record, undisputed, that there is no quid pro quo,” he says.
Bove is telling the judge that if #EricAdams & the #DOJ say so, he must accept that there was no quid pro quo to drop the case.
It is worth noting that #DanielleSassoon, the former head of the Manhattan prosecutor’s office, said there was indeed a #QuidProQuo offered by #EricAdams’s lawyer in a meeting she attended, & that one of her prosecutors took notes & got scolded for doing so by #EmilBove, who had the notes collected at the end of the meeting.