Jack - The Valentine's Day Seven

Episode Date: February 16, 2025

Acting US Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered the Southern District of New York to dismiss the bribery and fraud charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The office’s refusal to do that precipitated a standoff and ultimately several resignations and firings. The Thursday Afternoon Massacre - by Jay KuoDanielle Sassoon's letter to AG BondiQuestions for the pod Submit questions for the pod here https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJ Follow AG Substack|MuellershewroteBlueSky|@muellershewroteAndrew McCabe isn’t on social media, but you can buy his book The ThreatThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and TrumpWe would like to know more about our listeners. Please participate in this brief surveyListener Survey and CommentsThis Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at the Justice Enforcers level and above:https://dailybeans.supercast.techOrhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P

MSW Media. Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Emile Beauvais ordered the Southern District of New York to dismiss the bribery and fraud charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, Danielle Sassoon, refused to file the motion to dismiss and resigned in protest along with several other top DOJ officials. Emile Beauvais then put all Public Integrity Section lawyers into a room and told them they would all be fired if someone didn't volunteer to file the motion within an hour.

A federal prosecutor eventually agreed to file the motion to dismiss, but only to spare his fellow Department of Justice colleagues from being fired. This is unjustified. Hey everybody, it is Sunday, February 16th, 2025. I'm Alison Gill. How's it going, Andy? You know, I just don't know anymore. I don't know how to answer that question. I guess it's okay We're we've got a whole we've got a whole lot to talk about today, which is great for the show But maybe unfortunate for the country But nevertheless, we're gonna we're gonna get through all of it Yeah

a couple of really amazing letters out of the Department of Justice from what they're whatbing the Valentine's Day Seven. So this is from Jay Quo, and he writes, there was a bloodbath over at the Justice Department signaling real trouble ahead for the Trump administration. And I want to pause right here. I do believe that it's reasonable to say what happened at the Justice Department over the last couple of days as a bloodbath. I'm not really sure about the trouble ahead for the Trump administration part though. So we'll continue on here. In the first major challenge to Trump's new Attorney General, Pam Bondi, the resignation of acting U.S. Attorney, Danielle Sassoon, a top prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, set

off a chain reaction that has shaken the Justice Department to its core. Kuo continues, the department had been planning to drop all charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who was facing federal corruption charges and possible new obstruction of justice charges. Lately, Adams has been working hard to curry favor with the Trump White House,

and it looked like his efforts were about to pay off. Enter Sassoon, who is in charge of the Adams case. When she learned of the plan to dismiss all charges against Adams, she offered her resignation in a polite but damning letter. In it, she laid out why she could no longer in good faith work for the department, which had put political considerations above the rule of law. Yeah. So let's go over some parts of this letter. It had about a one page introduction and then she had three major sections. And she talks about the two reasons why what Emil

Beauvais asked her to do are, she's not going to do it. Basically, she's like, I can't in good faith. It would be against, I could be disbarred for this basically. And so some of this intro is pretty fiery. She says, dear attorney general Bondi. Now this is to Pam Bondi about Beauvais, who I believe is her deputy attorney general, right? Yeah. It's also a request by Sassoon to meet with Bondi and to discuss this in more depth. She basically

says at the end, if you don't want to meet, then I'll submit my resignation. But it is cast as a request for a meeting and it provides just amazing documentation, legal constructed, legal arguments to explain why she thinks this motion is absolutely untenable and she will not file it. Yeah, and I have a feeling that most of these kinds of communications that happen, happen behind closed doors, but this is something that went out to the public. It's also the dreaded going to paper. Yep. Right? public. It's also the dreaded going to paper. Yep. Right. Most of these, there

aren't a lot of conflicts like this between you within the Justice Department. But when you know a big US attorney and somebody at DOJ Maine go at it, it's on the phone. Yeah. It's a conversation. Maybe there's an in-person meeting. It's only when people are really painted into their own corners and feel very strenuously that they're right and the other person is wrong and that they need to establish a record of what they thought and why they thought what they thought, that's when you go to paper. Yeah. And the last big time you and I talked about somebody going to paper, it was when Robert

Mueller wrote a letter to Bill Barr about his mischaracterization of his work. That's right. And we talked about this was along, this was like in 2019, you and I talked about how what a big deal that was and how we couldn't put a finer point on trying to get everybody to understand how big a deal it is for him to, I think he made two phone calls and wrote a letter. We were like, he went to paper. That's a big deal.

So she says, dear attorney general Bondi on February 10th, I received a memo from acting deputy attorney general, Emil Boves, directing me to dismiss the indictment against mayor Eric Adams without prejudice, subject to certain conditions, which would require leave of court. Meaning you can't just dismiss a case. You have to ask a judge to please do so. That's right. Mr. Boves memo, however, which directs me to dismiss an indictment returned by a duly constituted grand jury for reasons having nothing to do with the strength of the case,

raises serious concerns that render contemplated dismissal inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good faith arguments before the courts. That good faith argument before the courts is a big deal because you might recall when the Mueller investigation was shuttered, there were several prosecutors at DOJ who weren't expecting that to happen and had scheduled some stuff with the court and had to go back to the court and say, we of go back to the court and say, we're so sorry, Your Honor, we are so sorry. We didn't know this was coming. The same thing happened with the census case when it was closed. And then Trump was like, it's

not, it's open. And the judges were like, what? And the judge was like, the prosecutors were like, what? And the prosecutor's like, your honor, we are so sorry. We thought this was done. And so when you lose that candor and trust with the court and judges, when you are constantly having to go into court and do your job, that's a really bad thing. And so it's important to, she brought that up here

and she brings it up a couple more times. Yeah, she does. So she goes on to say, when I took my oath of office three weeks ago, I vowed to well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I was about to enter. In carrying out that responsibility, I am guided by, among other things, the principles of federal prosecution set forth in the Justice Manual and your recent memoranda instructing attorneys for the Department of Justice to make, quote, only good faith arguments and not to use the criminal enforcement authority of the United States to achieve

political objectives or other improper aims. And sidebar, that's a very powerful statement because she is basically throwing Pam Bondi's words back in her face in the very second paragraph of this letter. Yeah. Because Pam Bondi was talking more about the January 6th prosecutions and the prosecutions of Donald Trump that are political in nature.

And she's like, um, what do you call this, basically? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So then she says, I am also guided by the values that have defined my over 10 years of public service. You and I have yet to meet, let alone discuss this case. But as you may know, I clerked for the honorable Harvey Wilkinson III on the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and wait for it, for Justice Antonin Scalia on the US Supreme Court. Both men instilled in me a sense of duty to contribute to the public

good and uphold the rule of law. Any commitment to reasoned and thorough analysis. That credential that she just tossed out there is super important. It definitely, it's her bona fides. She's telling the AG who she's never met, I'm a smart person, which is important, but also- I'm a Republican. Very conservative Republican.

She's a very conservative lawyer. Yes. A very conservative prosecutor, clerked for Scalia. I don't know how you can get more. I mean, unless you clerk for Thomas or Alito, I don't know. You can get more conservative than that. And I know that some people don't like to throw the term conservative around when we're talking about oligarchs. But yeah, she's like, I am not a deep state, hard left wing Fed that you are constantly complaining about. Nobody can blame this letter on the Biden administration. That's not about the standard

of liberal communist sociopathic, Biden, flunky. The thing that we hear about everyone that stands up and says, hey, wait a minute. Yeah, that's not gonna fly here. Yeah, and she closes her introduction by saying, I therefore deem it necessary to the faithful discharge of my duties to raise the concerns expressed in this letter with you and to request an opportunity

to meet to discuss them further. I cannot fulfill my obligations, effectively lead my office in carrying out the department's priorities or credibly represent the government before the courts. There's that thing again, about your credibility with the courts. I can't do any of that if I seek to dismiss the Adams case on this record for the reasons basically that Bovay wants me to. So then in her first section, she talks about the grounds that Emil Boves provided for dismissing this case. She said, Mr. Boves memo identifies two grounds for the contemplated dismissal. I cannot advance either argument in good faith.

And then she talks, I'll go over those two things, but there was another quote in there that you had highlighted as important. Yeah, she explains basically mechanically how you dismiss a case. You file a motion and you request the judge grant leave or basically agree that the case can be dismissed. So there is some level of judicial kind of judgment involved here, even in just the prosecution saying we don't want to go forward. So that paragraph finishes up with this sentence. The reasons advanced by Mr. Beauvais for dismissing the indictment are not ones I can in good faith defend as in the public interest and consistent with the principles of impartiality

and fairness that guide my decision making. That conclusion is an echo of the many cases that she cites in the paragraph, which lay out the standard for a judge who's been asked to grant leave to dismiss. The judge has got to be able to determine that the dismissal is in the public interest. Okay. And what she's saying is this is not in the public interest and any judge who looks she's saying is, this is not in the public interest and any judge who looks closely at it is likely to determine that. Yeah, and there's a couple of other nudges we'll get to later where she's like,

Judge Ho, who I think is the judge here, he's probably gonna do a thorough, he's gonna scrutinize this. He talks about transparency a lot, nudge, nudge, wink, wink. So the two things, the two reasons that Boves gives, she starts with the first one. Mr. Boves proposes dismissing the charges against Adams

in return for his assistance in enforcing federal immigration laws. Adams has argued in substance, and Mr. Boves appears to concede that Eric Adams should receive leniency for federal crimes solely because he occupies an important public position and can use that position to assist the administration's policy priorities. She goes on to say that federal prosecutors may not consider a potential defendant's political associations, activities, or

beliefs and that is cited from a case called Wait v. United States. If a criminal prosecution cannot be used to punish political activity, it likewise cannot be used to induce or coerce such activity. Threatening criminal prosecution even to gain an advantage in civil litigation is considered misconduct for an attorney." And then she cites the Bar Association ethics opinion, ABA criminal justice standard, et cetera, and says, in your words, the Department of Justice will not tolerate abuses of the criminal justice process, coercive behavior, or other forms of misconduct, unquote. Dismissal of the indictment for no other reason than to influence Adams'

mayoral decision-making would be all three. Again, another instance of reciting Bandy's own words. That's going to hurt. That's going to be a little pokey to the attorney general. I mean, what can she say? Well, I didn't mean it that way. No, that's not going to go over well. Right. And she actually goes on to say that Adams should not be rewarded. His advocacy should be called out for what it is, an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for dismissal of a case, his case. Although Mr. Beauvais disclaimed any intention to exchange leniency in this case for Adams' assistance in enforcing federal law.

That is the nature of the bargain laid bare in Mr. Beauvais' memo. And then she throws in this footnote. I attended a meeting, she says, on January 31st with Mr. Beauvais, Adams' lawyer and members of my office. Adams' attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the department's enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed. Mr. Beauvais admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion. Here we are again with the old, why do lawyers take notes? I've never seen a bunch of lawyers hate notes so much as these guys.

It's remarkable. So then she goes on to talk about this analogy that Beauvais made in his letter, basically comparing, dropping the charges here is similar to the US's prisoner exchange where we had a prisoner named Victor Bout, who was an infamous Russian arms dealer. There was actually a movie made about him once, slightly fictionalized, called The God of War. And we traded Victor Bout, who was serving an extended sentence here on a charge that the DEA brought against him. We traded him for the return of Brittany Greiner. And so she makes a bunch of references to why the fact that Beauvais even thought about

the Victor Bout case as justifying dropping this case against Adams is just deeply troubling. So she says, that is especially so given Mr. Bove's comparison to the bout prisoner exchange, which was quite expressly a quid pro quo, but one carried out by the White House and not the prosecutors in charge of Bout's case. The comparison to the bout exchange is particularly alarming. That prisoner swap was an exchange of official acts between separate sovereigns, the United States and Russia, neither of which had any claim that the other should obey its laws. By contrast, Adams is an American citizen and a

local elected official who is seeking a personal benefit, immunity from federal laws to which he is undoubtedly subject, in exchange for an act, enforcement of federal law. He has no right to refuse. So I just wanna make this perfectly clear. I feel like the point she's making here, it so obviously uncovers the corrupt nature of the bargain that DOJ is striking with Adams and his attorneys. If you think about it, from Eric Adams' perspective, as he thinks about enforcing immigration

law, he can only have one of two opinions about that prospect, and both of them are bad. In the first case, if he believes that the Trump administration is correct and that complying with the Trump administration's immigration program is a valid, lawful, and good thing to do for the citizens of New York. Well, here he is saying basically, I'm not going to do it unless you drop the charges against me. I am refusing to do my job that I know I should be doing until you confer upon me this personal benefit. That is deeply corrupt. The other option is he might take a principled view that enforcing the immigration laws in the way that Trump wants him to is not right. Maybe it's

illegal, it's immoral, it's not the right thing for New Yorkers. If that's the case, then what he's saying here, this bargain is him saying, I don't want to do this. I don't think I should do this. I don't think it's the right thing for New York, but I'll do it if you drop the charges against me. So either way, Adams is proposing and insisting upon a corrupt bargain here and the Department of Justice is willing to do it. Nicole Soule-Northman Yeah. Yep. And she says it's a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters

with a dismissal of a criminal indictment. Kind of summing up what you just said there. And the comparison to Victor Bout was really- Oh, unsavory. It's just awful. Victor Bout is a horrible human being. The fact that we had to give him back to get our wrongfully

detained citizen returned home is awful. But Joe Biden made that hard decision in an effort to write what he thought was a bigger wrong. I'm sure there were a lot of people at DOJ at the time that were mad about it, but that's his, that's his discretion as president. Yeah. And who's Victor Bout in this scenario? Is it Adams?

Like, I don't even know. Is it Beauvais? Is it Adams? I don't even know. Is it Beauvais? I don't get it. Who's supposed to be Victor Bout? Anyway, we're going to get to that second reason that the US prosecutor here, Danielle Sassoon, says that she can't do this. And we'll get to that right after the break. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody. Welcome back. We're on to that second reason now in this letter from Danielle Sassoon to Pam Bondi requesting to meet with her about Emil Boves order for her to file a motion under rule what is it 48a that's right to dismiss the case against Eric Adams

and the second reason is she says mr. Boves states that dismissal is warranted because of the conduct of this office's former US Attorney Damien Williams which according to mr. Boves memo constituted weaponization of government as defined by the relevant orders of the president and the department. The generalized concerns expressed by Mr. Bove are not a basis to dismiss an indictment returned by a duly constituted grand jury, at least where, as here, the government has no doubt in its evidence or the integrity of its investigation.

She goes on to say, by the way, I've learned that Mr. Williams's role in the investigation and oversight of this case was even more minimal than I had assumed. The investigation began before Williams took office. He didn't manage the day-to-day investigation and the charges in this case were recommended or approved by four experienced career prosecutors, the chiefs of the Southern District of New York Public Corruption Unit and career prosecutors at the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department. Mr. Williams' decision to ratify their recommendations does not taint the charging decision. And notably, Eric Adams has not brought a vindictive or selective prosecution motion,

nor would one be successful. So she's like, there's 900 reasons you blaming Damian Williams is just wrong. Yeah. I mean, this is what we were joking about earlier. This is where they always go. It's always some, well, this is political, you're law-faring us, you're weaponizing the whatever against us, fill in the blank. So the fact that they're blaming this on Williams, who some people believe is considering running for office, possibly running for office for the mayoralty in New York. They're kind of extrapolating.

He has not announced that. He simply has, as I understand, I have not seen it, but he has a website or something where he opines on things. And he recently wrote an op-ed, you know, saying like things in New York were bad or something. So, I don't know. But the fact that people are assuming that Williams has some political goals, that gives

them the opportunity to say, oh, this is all a big, you know, political thing. Right. She calls it pretextual. Yep. The weaponization argument. She goes on, she spends a couple of pages writing about Williams, but then she goes on to say this pretty big piece of bombshell news in this paragraph. She says, moreover, dismissing the case will amplify rather than abate concerns about weaponization

of the department. Despite Mr. Bove's observation that the directive to dismiss the case will amplify rather than abate concerns about weaponization of the department. Despite Mr. Bove's observation that the directive to dismiss the case has been reached without assessing the strength of the evidence against Adams, Adams has already seized on the memo to publicly assert that he is innocent and that the accusations against him were unsupported by the evidence and based only on quote fanfare and sensational claims. Confidence in the department would best be restored by means well short of dismissal. As you know, our office was prepared to seek a superseding indictment from a new grand jury under my leadership. We have proposed a superseding indictment that would add an obstruction conspiracy count based on evidence that Adams destroyed and instructed others to destroy evidence and provide false

information to the FBI and that would add further factual allegations regarding his participation in a fraudulent straw donor scheme. So Williams is gone. I'm here now. I was gonna, as you know, Pam Bondi. So she's calling her out because Pam Bondi knew this. As you know, I was gonna put my own grand jury together and get a superseding indictment on conspiracy to obstruct very, very serious judicial procedural crime. 20 years max for federal conspiracy to obstruct. And you and I talked about this a lot. Like remember when he had the cops do a wellness check on his, on his pal from the NYPD or whatever, and then called a couple of people and other people had pled guilty to this other

stuff. And I'm like, this sounds like a conspiracy to, to witness witness tamper obstruct justice and so we now know that there was. Classic public corruption case this has been going on for years those cases always start very slowly they're very quiet initially you do most of your investigating kind of covertly you're trying not to let anyone in the community know like who your target is or what you're going after but as they start ramping up with search warrants start getting executed and then kind of lower hanging fruit, lower less culpable people start having to come in and be interviewed. Maybe they get charged. Like then it ramps up very quickly. That's what we saw with this case in the last kind of six months or so. And associate after associate has found themselves in one level of legal

trouble or not, maybe for something they did with the mayor or maybe for other reasons, then you use now with all those people coming in and trying to cooperate, get themselves out of trouble. Now you start getting a lot of leads and evidence to bring charges. That's clearly what happened here. Yeah. And she said, and she said, she bid, she could, goes on to say, me doing that and these superseding indictments and all the evidence we have, that is more than enough to address any concern of Damien Williams weaponization that you have, basically. Yeah. Yeah. She says the Beauvais memo acknowledges as much, leaving open the possibility of refiling charges after the November 25 New York City mayoral election.

So how, how is this a weaponized bad Damien Williams prosecution if you're going to bring the case again? It's very clearly a weaponized prosecution, but not in the way that Beauvais is claiming. So Beauvais did, made a bunch of, I think, tactical and strategic errors here. The biggest, deepest self-inflicted wound was stating in his memo to her that his decision was made without reviewing the evidence in the case. It totally exposes the entire thing as being nothing other than political. It's not based on law and fact. And that's what fundamentally erodes her ability to go before a court and confidently, incredibly represent the motion. The second crazy thing that he did was he suggested we could, you know, we're going

to drop the charges so that he can enforce the immigration laws in the way we want. And you know what? We could always bring the charges later if he doesn't do things in the way that we desire. It's like setting up an extortion almost. It's on its face insane. And I'm like, he admitted to all of it too. Right. He said the quiet part out loud.

He wrote it down and then sent it to the Southern district. It's really remarkable. Yeah. And Sassoon even says on the contrary, keeping Adams under the threat of prosecution while the government determines its next steps is a recognized reason to deny a Rule 48 motion. Hello. That's like, no, like the judge, you know,

if they have to dig and find out and ask questions to see if they want to hang this over somebody's head like a sword of Damocles to get them to do something they want to do. And Boves is just like, that's exactly what we're doing. Right. And that's a reason to deny it. And she puts that in the letter.

Okay, next we're gonna talk about the section which addresses the fact that Adams consented to this bargain, I'll call it, and why that consent does not make this any more legal or easier to do in court. So we're gonna run out and take a quick break, but we'll be back in just a minute. Welcome back. Okay. In the next section, she shifts her attention to the fact that Mayor

Adams consented to this bargain. Beauvais represents that as somehow making this whole thing okay. So she says, Mr. Bovet. Right. So bonkers like, oh, he agrees that, you know, to have these, to have this dismissed without prejudice so we can hang it over his head for the next year. Yeah. So I say the guy who we're extorting, who's who we put a gun to the side of his head, he said it was perfectly fine to take his money. He says it was perfectly fine to take his money. He says it's cool.

Okay. Fine. Okay. She says, Mr. Bove specifies that Adams must consent in writing to dismissal without prejudice. To be sure, in the typical case, the defendant's consent makes it significantly more likely for courts to grant motions to dismiss under Rule 48A. But Adams' consent, which was negotiated without my office's awareness or participation, would not guarantee a successful motion given the basic flaws in the stated rationales for dismissal. Seeking leave of court to dismiss a properly returned indictment based on Mr. Beauvais stated rationales is also likely to backfire by inviting skepticism and scrutiny

from the court that will ultimately hinder the Department of Justice interests. In particular, the court is unlikely to acquiesce in using the criminal process to control the behavior of a political figure. Mm hmm. Yeah. So basically, that's great that he consents, but you admitted that you're extorting him and that this was a quid pro quo. Yeah, of course. You know, him consenting isn't going to really help your weird case. And the nonsense of doing this as a sidebar has already been exposed by Adams own attorneys

who in the last 24 hours and answering questions in the media have said, this case is never coming back and everybody knows it. Oh my God. So really bad, bad, uh, I don't know, conspiracy here. I mean, just, um, uh, yeah, I don't know. It's yeah. She says that the, um, this is the part where she talks about the judge. She said Yeah, I don't know. It's- Yeah. She says that the, this is the part where she talks about the judge. She said, the assigned district judge, the honorable Dale E. Ho appears likely to conduct a searching inquiry into the case.

And a rigorous inquiry here would be consistent with precedent and practice in this and other districts. She goes on to say, nor is there any realistic possibility that Adams's consent will prevent a lengthy judicial inquiry that is detrimental to the department's reputation, regardless of the outcome. In that regard, I don't think Bovet cares about the department's reputation. No. But in that regard, and although the Flynn case may come to mind as a comparator, and I thought of the Flynn case too, but mind as a comparator, and I thought of the

Flynn case too, but only because a bunch of people resigned from that. I mean, this was just, yeah, brought back a lot of bad memories of the Flynn case, but anyway. But she says it's distinct from the Flynn case in one important way. In the Flynn case, the government moved to dismiss an indictment with a defendant's consent and faced resistance from a skeptical district judge. But in the Flynn case, the government sought dismissal with prejudice because it had become convinced that there was insufficient evidence that General Flynn had committed any crime. That ultimately made the government's rationale defensible because insufficient

evidence is a quintessential justification for dismissing charges. And that's what Beauvais doesn't understand, I guess, in his position. He has very broad prosecutorial discretion. And had he just said, we think that there's insufficient evidence. I don't think the law applies here, or something like that, dismiss the charges, she probably would have been like, okay, you know.

I disagree. Maybe I strongly disagree, but she probably would have done it. Yeah. Yeah. It's remarkable. And even in the Flynn case, even though they had much, okay, it was the wrong thing for Bill Barr to do. No, no question. But they backed themselves up more effectively in that case than they have here. Well, Bill Barr, while as corrupt, was just, it's just way smarter than Emile Bovay. Just way smarter, way better than Emile Bovay. But even in that case, you'll remember that when the government came in and made the motion, it wasn't a fait accompli.

The judge still dug in and he actually commissioned retired federal judge, John Gleason, to come in, review the case and write a memo like an amicus brief to the court as to whether he thought the case should be dismissed or not. Gleason wrote a scathing memo about the government's conduct in the case and recommended that the motion not be granted. And then of course, that was the status it was in when Barr then realized, this is not, the plane is heading for the ground here and we're all going to be on it when it crashes. And so he pulled the rip cord by getting Trump to then pardon Flynn. So the issue was never resolved in the Flynn case because Trump swooped in with

the pardon power and stopped the whole thing. Mm-hm. And that's what she said. case because Trump swooped in with the pardon power and stopped the whole thing. And that's what she said. She said, here, no one in the department has expressed any doubts as to Adams's guilt. I mean, except for, no, Beauvais didn't even express any doubts about Adams's guilt. I didn't even look at the evidence. So how could he say the evidence is insufficient? And he's multiple times, you know, patted her on the back, Danielle Sassoon on the back for her great work.

So no one has expressed any doubts to Adams's guilt. And even in Flynn, the president ultimately chose to cut off the extended and embarrassing litigation over dismissal by granting a pardon. So we could see a Trump pardon here in order to make this go away for the department as well. And I think that's likely, I think we might. Yeah. Yeah.

So as much as I would like to see a hearing and some litigation and to have this fought out in court, I think Trump will step in and just pardon Adams. I agree with you. All right. So the next section, I'll just give you the title. It says, I cannot in good faith request the contemplated dismissal. So she says here, because the law does not support a dismissal and because I am confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged, I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations. As Justice Robert Jackson explained, quote, the prosecutor

at his best is one of the most beneficial forces in our society. When he acts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst. She goes on in that paragraph to say, I understand my duty as a prosecutor to mean enforcing the law impartially. And that includes prosecuting a validly returned indictment regardless whether its dismissal

would be politically advantageous to the defendant or to those who appointed me. Wow, powerful. And that is a very clear shot right at Emile Beauvais. Yeah. And she also says that dismissing without prejudice and with the express option of again indicting Adams in the future creates obvious ethical problems by implicitly threatening future prosecution if Adams's cooperation with enforcing the immigration laws

proves unsatisfactory to the department, which is exactly, you know, that's the extortion. She says, finally, given the highly generalized accusations of weaponization weighed against the strength of the evidence against Adams, a court will likely question whether that basis is pretextual. So again, she's raising the specter of, even if I sent this thing forward

and was willing to get into there and represent it, which I'm not, I'm not sure that any judge would sign it. Yeah. And she closed it this way. She said, I remain baffled by the rushed and superficial process by which this decision was reached in seeming collaboration with Adams as attorneys. And without my direct input on the ultimate stated rationales for dismissal, Mr. Beauvais admonished me to be mindful of my obligation to zealously defend the interests of the United States and to advocate good faith arguments on behalf of the administration. I hope you share my view that soliciting and considering the concerns of the U.S. attorney overseeing the case serves rather than hinders that goal and that we can find a time to meet. In the event you're unwilling

to meet or reconsider the directive in light of the problems I've raised that have been raised in Mr. Bove's memo, I'm prepared to offer my resignation. It has been and continues to be my honor to serve as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. So there you have it. And if you thought that was going to be the final word in this draw, you were wrong because Bovay fires back. Okay. So for this, we go back to Jay Quowel who writes, BoBove is a real piece of work, and he wasn't gonna let things go quietly. Whether Bondi instructed him to answer,

or he took it upon himself to do so, his letter responding to Sassoon blasted her personally and her handling of the case, along with her decision not to obey a direct order. Bove didn't just stop with her. He wrote that the other prosecutors on the case who had worked with her and apparently supported her position would be placed on administrative leave too for disobeying his command. He threatened them with an investigation by the AG and the

department's internal investigative unit, both of which would also evaluate Sassoon's conduct, which could be taken as a veiled threat to bring bar disciplinary action. Beauvais may want to think twice about this investigation now, as his own conduct might come under the microscope and the judge overseeing the dismissal could demand some answers about what really went down. Yeah, and he goes on to say that the most telling part of the letter was where Beauvais placed fealty to the president above all other considerations including Sassoon's oath to uphold the Constitution, saying, quote, in no valid sense do you uphold the Constitution by disobeying direct orders implementing the

policy of a duly elected president and anyone romanticizing that behavior does a disservice to the nature of this work and the public's perception of our efforts. So this is the point where things got interesting, even more interesting, I should say. After Sassoon resigned, Beauvais then sent the file over to the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department in DC. There, he expected that the heads of the section, Kevin Driscoll and John Keller, would obey his orders to dismiss the case, but instead they both resigned. Beauvais went to other lawyers down the line, including one who reportedly was in the hospital giving birth. The response was the same. We quit.

She probably said, I quit and please leave me alone. Yeah. The baby even quit. Really? In the hospital with the baby? You're going to fire me now? Okay, fine. But. Now in all, there were seven resignations, including Sassoon's. This is twice the number of people who were sacked when President Nixon ordered the firing of prosecutor Archibald Cox, who was investigating Watergate. They had to go three officials down the line until they got Robert Bork, who was unprincipled enough to order Cox's firing. That series of dismissals became known as the Saturday Night Massacre, and it soured the public badly against Nixon,

who was clearly trying to obstruct the investigation. Yeah, and against Bork, I should say. Moreover, there's significant pressure now on New York Governor Kathy Hochul to exercise her power to remove Adams from office, especially now that there is unrefuted evidence that Adams sought leniency in exchange for throwing migrants in New York under the bus and letting ICE have free rein and contravention to the city's existing policies. Indeed, shortly after Sassoon's resignation on Thursday, following a meeting between Adams and Trump's new border czar, Thomas Homan,

Adams declared that for the first time they would issue an order allowing ICE agents into Rikers Island prison complex, signaling a stark departure from the city's prior sanctuary city status. Through all of this, one thing is now crystal clear. The story has gone from a local case of mayoral corruption to a stunning and significant national case

of embarrassment for the Justice Department. The resistance to the behavior of top officials, explosively displayed by the mass resignations of top department lawyers on Thursday, spells real trouble for Bovet and Bondi as they seek to bend the entire DOJ to the will of Trump White House. Yeah. And there's one other letter that I wanted to read before we get to listener questions. And this is Hagen Scotton. Okay. And he was a clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts and I think for Kavanaugh as well. Another turbo liberal. Yeah, turbo liberal. That's funny.

So he also resigned because of this. And he actually writes, I have received correspondence indicating that I refused your order, he's talking to Beauvais, to move to dismiss the indictment against Eric Adams without prejudice, subject to certain conditions, including the express possibility of reinstatement of the indictment against Eric Adams without prejudice, subject to certain conditions, including the express possibility of reinstatement of the indictment. That is not exactly correct.

The US attorney Danielle R. Sassoon never asked me to file such a motion, and I therefore never had an opportunity to refuse. But I am entirely in agreement with her decision not to do so for the reason stated in in her February 12, 2025 letter to the attorney general. In short, the first justification for the motion that Damien Williams' role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence and pursued under four different US attorneys is so weak as to be transparently pretextual. The second justification is worse. No system of ordered liberty can allow the government to use the carrot of dismissing charges or the stick of threatening to bring them again to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives. And I'm

going to let you read this last paragraph, Andy, because it's a fireball. There is a tradition in public service of resigning in a last ditch effort to head off a serious mistake. Some will view the mistake you are committing here in the light of their generally negative views of the new administration. I do not share those views. I can even understand how a chief executive

whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal with leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal. But any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials in this way. 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. Please consider this my resignation. It has been an honor to serve as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. Well said. Dang. Dang, Hagen Scotton. Well said, H Hagen Scotton. Well said Hagen.

Right? That's an incredible letter. And I'm sure you'll find a fool or a coward that's willing to do this. Yeah. But it was never going to be me. Yeah. Good for him. Good for him. So I guess the volunteer that they ended up with was Ed Sullivan, you know, who's a veteran career prosecutor Who essentially agreed to alleviate the pressure on his colleagues in the department's public integrity section two sources have said So what seems on the surface to be like hey Ed?

Are you the coward or the fool who stepped forward to do it? I think there's a deeper story here Yeah, and we have to at least give him the benefit of the doubt that he in good conscience trying to avoid seeing all of his colleagues fired in this fit of peak by the acting deputy attorney general stepped forward to swallow the bitter pill to save everybody for probably what will be one more day of employment. Right. Because what Hagen Scotton was assuming was that he would just go down the line and keep

asking someone and eventually somebody would say, yeah, I'll do it. But that's not what happened. What happened was, and this is frightening, he put all the public integrity lawyers in one room and said, you have an hour to decide which one of you is going to file this motion and if you don't pick someone to agree I'm firing all of you. Yeah. And so that's why Ed stood up and said I'll do it. It's like basically threatening to kill the hostages until somebody does what you want. So that's such a sad commentary on what the Department of Justice has become and a really

scary maybe insight as to where it's going, if it's going to be led on a permanent basis by people like Emile Beauvais. Yeah, agreed. All right, we're going to take some listener questions. If you have a question, we have a link in the show notes that you can click on to submit a question. And it can be about anything. So please feel free to submit your questions and we'll answer a few right after this quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Alright, we've got some fantastic listener questions from some fantastic listeners.

First up is someone called Not Elon Musk. Love it. Love the name. That's good. Hi, Andy and Alison. I've been listening since the beginning of You Don't Know Jack. Nice. That's a lot.

That's an OG listener. Yeah, we had, I think, one episode out before we had to change that. And I'm a line AUSA. What are your thoughts on whether folks should stay put? I haven't been asked to do anything immoral or unethical, but it's the level of ridiculousness. It's growing by the minute. Yeah. Yeah, I bet it is. And I am so glad, uh, not Elon Musk that you wrote this question in. And I really appreciate the way you're thinking about your job and what the future might hold. I'm hearing from a lot of people, mostly within the Bureau, but other people around as well, um, who are kind of struggling with these same ideas.

I actually teach a class as you know, AG. I teach graduate students in George Mason University and many of my current and former students are calling me with similar questions because they all want to work for the government, but now it's a very dicey prospect. Basically what I tell people, and I believe this very deeply,

that if you are in the right job for you and you are doing good work up to your own moral and legal and ethical standards, you should continue doing that for as long as you can because it is still and maybe even more so now a wonderful service to this country and all of our people. But here's what, you should know what your red lines are and you should be aware of the fact that you know you might be at some point asked to do something that does not live up to your standards legally, ethically or morally. And when that happens, you should be ready to walk away. I think no job is worth compromising your ethics for. And I think the bigger and more important positions you have,

the more important it becomes to do, to always do what you think is right. And if you're not willing to walk away from the job or to get fired for doing the right thing, then you shouldn't have had the job to begin with. So not Elon Musk. I say keep, you know, hold the line. Do it well. Be a resource and an example to the people you work with. But when the day comes that you get asked for something that's wrong, you got to be prepared to do the courageous thing.

Yeah. You got to, you got to sassoon them. Yeah, for real, for real. And good for her for giving us an example of that. I think it's really, yeah, it's, it's, it kind of restores you a little bit, right? Restores your faith a little bit. It was really nice to see that. Um, and, and, you know, with the, like I said, these are Scalia clerks, John Roberts clerks, Kavanaugh clerks.

So it's good to know there are still people with integrity, line prosecutors with integrity, they're willing to do the right thing. So I very much appreciate that question as well. And thanks for the work that you're doing. I am not a close, I don't teach people who might end up working at the Department of Justice. But as a former federal employer, if I were able to have kept my job, I would have kept it.

Yeah. Yeah, for real. Same here. Same here. Did you lose a job, Andy? It wasn't given the option to stay. Maybe next time. Maybe next time. Anyway, what do we have next? All right. So this is, okay, great questions this week. So well thought out and really emotionally presented. I suit just so appreciative of that. And so this is kind of an example of one of those i thought it was really telling so i thought i'd share it. Okay i didn't grab the name but you know who you are when you hear this. Starts i think this is more of a comment than a question dearest alison and andy thank you so much for continuing to provide us with valuable information and emotional support during these dark times. I just want to thank you both and especially

Allison for what you said on today's episode. And she quotes, and from what I understand, even though there's a court order in place, there are still federal grants that have been frozen and remain frozen. And this questioner says, yes, exclamation point, my husband is the executive director of a small wildlife conservation nonprofit, and many of their funds are still frozen, illegally so, despite the court order. I wish more people knew about this, so I want to thank you for acknowledging our current painful reality. I guess my only question would be what, if anything, can be done about such a cruel administration

that flouts the law and the courts. It feels like a horrible situation to have quote one in the courts, but to see that in reality nothing has changed. I hope for good news. Otherwise the wonderful nonprofit that he has led tirelessly for very little pay for so many years will have to start laying off employees and possibly even cease to exist. Anyway, thanks you two. You're the best. Well, I think you're the best and I don't know what to say. I'm not an expert on how

to deal with these situations. I don't think anyone is right now. This is all very new to have to get our heads around the idea that maybe our government or our executive branch is just going to start ignoring court orders. I would think that obviously we need some very aggressive, well-supported, well-funded legal representation that's willing to go

running back into court and trying to hold their feet to the fire. Where that will end up, I don't think anybody knows at this point, but fighting the fight is worth it. You may not get the win as quickly and as impactfully as you would like and deserve, but the fight itself is worthwhile. Yeah, I agree. And I'm so, so sorry that this is happening. It's, it's part of a giant effort, right? That we can't possibly report on any one single thing because the, you know, it's scattershot. And so, so many things go unknown and untalked about. I read a story of one person who works for USAID that was stranded in Africa and they couldn't get out and they couldn't be in touch with their handlers back in the States and didn't know what to

do and then were forced to find their own way home within 30 days or something like that. And usually, you know, you have like nine months and they had kids in school and all these other considerations. And that's just like one story. And this, this, you know, conservation nonprofit that has been working for years to do good work is now threatened. It's just these stories are so heartbreaking and I'm so sorry that you're going through that. Um, I know that there is a lot of lawsuits already working their way through the courts so that you probably don't have to, but I'm just, I'm just really sorry that this is happening.

Yeah, same, same. And I think, I think that's all part of the design to do as many things as they can at the same time to kind of overwhelm and stun and confuse the country. So it's important to hear stories like this and to remember that there's probably many examples like this out there. I mean, USAID, 80% of their expenditures of foreign aid are spent here in the United States. That's money that goes to nonprofits based in the United States to do the good work that they do in other parts of the world. And so those are your neighbors and friends and people who live here, same as you do and they're suffering now too. So I don't know where it all ends. I wish I did, but...

I would contact your member of Congress too. I know that there were some panics happening in Kansas and Alabama with Katie Britt who was like, wait, wait, wait, you're shutting off what? And because so many jobs in her state depend on this USAID aid. And so that might be something that your congressional representatives are interested in. We know that Trump doesn't care about what people think about him or trying to win another election. He doesn't care about that, but members of Congress do. They do have to win their elections.

And if their constituents are, are feeling the pain, um, like this, then that might actually move them to do something. So I would definitely write a letter, um, to your Congressman. do something. So I would definitely write a letter to your congressman. They, for some reason, snail mail, they, because it's, I guess, because they physically get it. It's going to paper. They read it. I remember, you know, working at the VA, we're like, we get all sorts of emails all day long. But when you got a paper letter, it went all the way up to the fifth floor and it went all the way to the associate director's office and then it went right down to whoever had to deal with it and everything got dealt with and

filed and logged and tracked and so I would write that letter to your representatives and tell them. When I settled my infamous lawsuit and I was supposed to start receiving my pension and like I don't know seven months later I still not only hadn't gotten anything, but hadn't even heard from anyone about it. I didn't know what to do. And so I went on the website and I looked up my congresswoman, who is Jennifer Wexton, who's no longer in Congress, unfortunately, but she is a wonderful person and was a great representative. And, you know, I know, I've met her before and I know people who know her well, but I just went on the website and filled out the little email form

and described told her who I was and described my situation and didn't make any phone calls or pull any strings or anything. And within days, I got a, I got a reply from her staff, and then I got contacted by, I guess it's OPM, and the check started coming a week or two later. She did her job. She did her job. She got someone to call that place and say, hey, this is one of our constituents and we want to see that this is fixed. Yeah.

When I got taken out of my VA job, that was six years ago, almost five years ago. It was a long time ago. Litigation pending, trademark. You know, I had asked for severance and I received, I won that battle. I got a little bit of, I got my calculated severance, what it was supposed to be. And Andy, like a week ago, like shortly after January 20th, I got a letter in the mail. It said, hey, this is DFAS at the VA. We overpaid you, you owe us a debt. And I was like, what?

And they're like, we overpaid you, you owe us this money. If you don't pay it, we're gonna cut off your benefits or whatever. I was like, what are you even talking about? So I don't know. First of all, they didn't overpay me. Like I talked to like five bucks here or something. I mean, like, no, that's more than that. Okay. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. I can't handle like, come on, five years ago you overpaid me and now you're sending me a letter? Like, what did they just run a big old Doge audit when they got into the thing and they're like, okay, well, are they Democrats? Will they owe us money? I don't know. I can't figure it out.

I guess they heard they figured they needed to tighten up over there. I don't know. Oh my God. What a mess. What a mess. All right. Well, thank you very much everybody for sending in your questions and your comments and your stories. If you have any that you want to send to us, whether you have a question or you just want to vent or just have an ear, we're here. We do read them. So send them to us. Click on that link in the show notes. This has been the Valentine's day seven. That's right. That's what they're calling.

That's what they're calling this. And because the Nixon thing was the Saturday night massacre. This is the Valentine's Day seven. Yeah. Cause there already was a Valentine's Day massacre many years ago, Chicago gangland thing, but still, you know, any confusion there. So this was by far the most significant DOJ story of the week, not for just what happened, but what it reveals to us and should make us concerned about what the future holds. So come back next week and find out what the most significant things to happen in and around DOJ. The drama goes on and it's more important now than ever to keep track of it.

Yeah. And we'll probably be talking about Kash Patel a lot. That's a feeling. Um, did you know, uh, apparently he lied to Congress, um, when he told them that he didn't have anything to do with the mass firings at the FBI. So that'll be interesting. So we're going to cover that next time along with this confirmation. Very good. All right.

We'll talk then everybody. You have a this confirmation. Very good. All right. We'll talk then everybody. You have a wonderful week. I've been Alison Gill and I'm Andy McCabe. Unjustified is written and executive produced by Alison Gill with additional research and analysis by Andrew McCabe. Sound design and editing is by Molly Hockey with art and web design by Joel Reeder at Moxie Design Studios.

The theme music for Unjustified is written and performed by Ben Folds and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator-owned independent podcasts dedicated to news, politics, and justice. For more information, please visit MSWMedia.com.