Should the Charges Against Mayor Adams Now Be Dismissed With Prejudice … Because of Prosecutorial Misconduct?
I’ve been following the Justice Department’s pending motion to dismiss corruption charges against Mayor Adams, focusing on the question of whether the dismissal involves some sort of illegal quid pro quo. The motion seeks to dismiss the charges without prejudice. Yesterday, the Mayor’s skilled defense attorneys filed a new motion to dismiss the charges—with prejudice—based on alleged prosecutorial misconduct in leaking internal Justice Department correspondence critical of the dismissal. The Mayor’s new motion raises important issues and highlights why, in my view, the existing motion to dismiss has become even more easily defensible.
To set the stage: On this blog, we’ve had a debate about the dismissal motion that I think (to some degree) tracks the national debate in New York and elsewhere about the dismissal motion. To simplify, initially there was a wave of outrage about an alleged quid pro quo in the dismissal motion (as suggested in the resignation letter by Acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon). But faced with sworn denials from lawyers on both sides of the case, that outrage seems to have morphed into concern about whether the dismissal should be with or without prejudice.
Illustrating that transition from the debate here on this blog, VC readers will recall two initial posts by David Post asserting that there was an improper quid pro quo in the dismissal, the first one linking to a full copy of the Sassoon letter and the second one developing her allegation. Josh Blackman responded, and then David Post replied, reasserting his quid pro quo position. I then supported Josh Blackman’s view by arguing that motion to dismiss was easily defensible and, in a second post, that there was no quid pro quo. David Post then rejoined with a post entitled: “No Quid Pro Quo. So?” My reading of this post (as suggested by its title) is that David has retreated to the position that whether there was, in fact, a negotiated quid pro quo is unimportant because things will implicitly shake out in way that resembles quid pro quo. I’ve seen similar arguments elsewhere. And another recent post (relating views of Professor Ryan Snyder) notes the debate over the quid pro quo and then proceeds on the assumption that there was a quid pro quo—without attempting to defend that characterization.
Yesterday’s motion by Mayor Adams highlights an overlooked feature of the trajectory of this debate: the mere fact that government prosecutors have leaked an internal allegation of an improper “quid pro quo” has been highly and unfairly damaging to Mayor Adams. I was going to try and summarize the motion’s allegations. But it seems best to begin by simply quoting from the motion’s powerful introductory paragraph:
Following the Department of Justice’s long-overdue decision to dismiss the case against Mayor Adams, someone within the government leaked a February 12, 2025 letter from the former interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to the Attorney General. The leaked letter disclosed, among other things, the former interim U.S. Attorney’s self-proclaimed confidence in Mayor Adams’s guilt; the fact that Southern District prosecutors were planning to re-indict Mayor Adams, including on a new and equally baseless obstruction charge; and the wildly inflammatory and false accusation that Mayor Adams and his counsel had, in essence, offered a quid to the Department of Justice in exchange for the quo of dismissal. The disclosure of this letter to the press was part of an extraordinary flurry of leaked internal Justice Department correspondence that included memoranda from the Acting Deputy Attorney General to the Southern District and an unhinged resignation letter by one of the former line prosecutors on this case. In addition to violating Mayor Adams’s fundamental constitutional rights and ability to receive a
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