In my seven years as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, we brought 130 cases of political corruption. Though I have been a lifelong Republican, corruption has no party—the cases were against Republicans and Democrats alike. The reason those cases were so important was that it showed citizens that betrayal of the public trust would not be tolerated and could not be fixed or explained away. Our ability to govern ourselves, the very basis of our civilized society, could not survive for very long without that belief.
That is why the events of the last week regarding the dismissal of the prosecution of New York City mayor Eric Adams are so disturbing and dangerous. That is why I believe Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon resigned rather than implement that order from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove III.
To understand how this action threatens our system, one need only deliberately examine the stated reasons for the direction to dismiss itself.
