This undated image, provided by the U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York, shows Danielle R. Sassoon, interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. (U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Before resigning, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan told her boss that she was confident that New York City Mayor Eric Adams "has committed the crimes with which he is charged" and that she would refuse the Justice Department’s order to drop the corruption case.

Danielle Sassoon said in a letter Wednesday to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that prosecutors were prepared to seek a new indictment charging Adams with additional crimes of destroying evidence, instructing others to destroy evidence and providing false information to the FBI.

Sassoon resigned Thursday, announcing her decision in an email to staff.

In response, the acting deputy U.S. attorney general, Emil Bove, scolded Sassoon for defying his order to dismiss the case against the Democratic mayor.

Bove wrote that Sassoon was “incapable of fairly and impartially reviewing the circumstances of this prosecution.” He said the case would be transferred to the Justice Department, which would file a motion to drop the charges and bar “further targeting” of Adams.

The Associated Press obtained copies of both letters.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

NEW YORK (AP) — The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan resigned Thursday after refusing a Justice Department order to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Two senior Justice Department officials also quit after the department leadership in Washington moved to seize control of the case.

Danielle Sassoon, a Republican serving as interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced her resignation in an email to her staff. The move was confirmed by a spokesperson for the office. Adams' case has yet to be dropped.

After Sassoon declined to dismiss the case, the department’s public integrity section in Washington was asked to take over, according to a person familiar with the matter. Two senior officials who oversee the unit, including the acting chief, resigned in response, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

The exits came days after a high-ranking Justice Department official directed federal prosecutors in New York to end the case against Adams, a Democrat who was accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions and bribes of free or discounted travel from people who wanted to buy his influence. He has pleaded not guilty.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said in a memo Monday that the case should be dismissed so Adams could aid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and campaign for reelection free from facing criminal charges. The primary is four months away and Adams has multiple challengers.

Bove had directed that be done as soon as “practicable,” but there have been no public statements or actions by the prosecution team. On Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi said she would “look into” why the case had yet to be dismissed. As of Thursday afternoon, the charges remained in place.

In the email to her staff, Sassoon did not give a reason for her resignation. In the note, the contents of which were obtained by The Associated Press, she said she had just submitted her resignation to Bondi.

“As I told her, it has been my greatest honor to represent the United States and to pursue justice as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York," Sassoon wrote.

The Justice Department did not ask Sassoon to resign, according to a department official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The department declined public comment on Sassoon's exit. A message seeking comment was left for Adams’ attorney, Alex Spiro. A spokesperson for the mayor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The government's decision to end the Adams case because of political considerations, rather than the strength or weakness of the evidence, alarmed some career prosecutors who said it was a departure from long-standing norms.

The directive from Bove, a former Trump personal lawyer, was all the more remarkable because Bove had been a longtime prosecutor and supervisor in the Southern District and because department leaders are historically reluctant to intervene in cases where charges have been brought — particularly in an office as prestigious as that U.S. attorney's office.

Bove's memo also steered clear of any legal basis for the dismissal despite decades of department tradition dictating that charging decisions are to be guided by facts, evidence and the law.

Sassoon, a former clerk for the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was not the prosecutor who brought the case against Adams last year. That was then-U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, who stepped down after Trump’s election victory in November.

Sassoon had only been tapped to serve as acting U.S. attorney on Jan. 21, the day after Trump took office.

Her role was intended to be temporary. Trump in November nominated Jay Clayton, the former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, to the post, an appointment that must be confirmed by the Senate. That has not happened yet.

The Southern District of New York is among the largest and most prominent prosecutor’s offices in the U.S., with a long track record of tackling Wall Street malfeasance, political corruption and international terrorism.

It has a tradition of independence from Washington, something that has earned it the nickname “the sovereign district.”

During Trump’s first term, the office prosecuted both the president’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his strategic adviser, Steve Bannon, in separate cases. Cohen pleaded guilty to tax evasion and campaign finance charges. Trump ended the federal fraud case against Bannon by pardoning him, though nearly identical charges were then brought by state prosecutors.

This is the second Justice Department tussle in five years between Washington and New York officials to result in a dramatic leadership turnover.

In 2020, William Barr, who served as one of Trump’s attorneys general during his first term pushed out Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, in a surprise nighttime announcement. Berman initially refused to resign his position, creating a brief standoff with Barr, but did so after an assurance that his investigations into allies of Trump would not be disturbed.

Sassoon joined the U.S. attorney’s office in 2016. In 2023 she helped lead the fraud prosecution of Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. More recently, she had served as the office’s co-chief of criminal appeals.

Adams was indicted in September on charges that while he worked as Brooklyn borough president, he accepted over $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks such as expensive flight upgrades, luxury hotel stays and even a trip to a bathhouse.

The indictment said a Turkish official who helped facilitate the trips then leaned on Adams for favors, including asking him to lobby the Fire Department to let a newly constructed, 36-story diplomatic building open in time for a planned visit by Turkey’s president.

Prosecutors said they had proof that Adams personally directed political aides to solicit foreign donations and disguise them to help the campaign qualify for a city program that provides a generous, publicly-funded match for small dollar donations. Under federal law, foreign nationals are banned from contributing to U.S. election campaigns.

As recently as Jan. 6, prosecutors had indicated their investigation remained active, writing in court papers that they continued to “uncover additional criminal conduct by Adams.”

Bove said in his memo that Justice Department officials in Washington hadn’t evaluated the evidence in the case before deciding it should be dropped — at least until after the mayoral election in November.

But he criticized “recent public actions” by Williams that he said had “threatened the integrity of the proceedings, including by increasing prejudicial pretrial publicity.” Williams hasn’t spoken publicly about the Adams case since his resignation, but wrote an editorial decrying corruption in politics.

Federal agents had also been investigating other senior Adams aides. It was unclear what will happen to that side of the probe. __

Richer and Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jake Offenhartz and Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.

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