The Justice Department ordered Manhattan prosecutors Monday to dismiss the historic bribery case against Mayor Eric Adams — siding with Hizzoner that the charges under the Biden administration were politically motivated and hampered his ability to combat the migrant crisis in New York City, The Post has confirmed.
The new DOJ under President Donald Trump instructed the Southern District of New York to dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning charges could be re-filed in the future, sources said.
“You are directed, as authorized by the Attorney General, to dismiss the pending charges” against Adams, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove wrote in a letter obtained by The Post.
5 New York City Mayor Eric Adams was facing a historic bribery case. Getty Images
The letter notes “independent reasons” as to why Adams’ case was being tossed — including that the case was retribution for him speaking out against the Biden administration for its handling of the migrant crisis.
“It cannot be ignored that Mayor Adams criticized the prior Administration’s immigration policies before the charges were filed, and the former US Attorney’s public actions created appearances of impropriety…”
Bove wrote that the charges have “improperly interfered with Mayor Adams’ campaign in the 2025 mayoral election” and also has “unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior Administration.”
The immigration crackdown is a focus out of Trump out of the gate in his second term, and Adams has signaled a willingness to support harsh measures – including rolling back sanctuary city policies – that are anathema to many of his Democratic counterparts.
But Adams isn’t entirely in the clear, as Bove’s letter also notes that “the matter shall be reviewed by the confirmed US Attorney in the Southern District of New York, following the November 2025 mayoral election.”
“There shall be no further targeting of Mayor Adams or additional investigative steps … and you are further directed to take all steps within your power to cause Mayor Adams’ security clearances to be restored,” he wrote.
A motion outlining the legal reasons behind the dismissal is expected to be filed as soon as Tuesday.
5 The dismissal motion comes after weeks of Adams trying to get in President Trump’s good graces AFP via Getty Images
A rep for SDNY declined to comment.
The stunning turn of events appears to signal the end of the years-long criminal probe into Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign that has hung over Hizzoner’s head during his scandal-plagued first term in office.
Adams, 64, who was indicted in September, was accused of accepting thousands of dollars in free or upgraded luxury travel as bribes from foreign nationals in exchange for political favors, including helping fast-track the opening of the Turkish Consulate in Manhattan.
The Democratic mayor quickly denied the accusations and cast the prosecution as political retribution from the former Biden administration for speaking out on the migrant crisis.
As migrants flowed largely unimpeded across the US-Mexico border and reached New York City by the thousands, Adams bucked Biden as he begged for funding and a national decompression strategy.
But the calls went unheeded and put Adams, who once called himself the “Biden of Brooklyn,” forever out of the former president’s good graces.
5 Adams had claimed the charges were politically motivated by the Biden administration. REUTERS
Shortly after a stunning 57-page indictment dropped, Adams vowed to fight.
“Despite our pleas, when the federal government did nothing as its broken immigration policies overloaded our shelter system with no relief, I put the people of New York before party and politics,” he said at the time.
“I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target — and a target I became.”
The claim of political persecution was ready-made to find a receptive audience with Trump, who made similar assertions about his myriad criminal cases.
Keep up with today’s most important news Stay up on the very latest with Evening Update. Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters
Trump contended after Adams’ indictment that he predicted the mayor would face federal charges for implicitly speaking out against Biden.
“And I said, ‘You know what? He’ll be indicted within a year,’” Trump said.
Adams’ defense team long expected a Trump administration to be more amenable to their case, either through a presidential pardon or a dismissal motion from the highest levels of the DOJ — despite the case starting under Trump’s first term in 2021.
And the dismissal order comes after weeks of Adams trying to get in Trump’s good graces by going out of his way to not criticize the president and publicly align himself with new immigration policies.
5 Adams had eventually called on the feds to help NYC with the migrant crisis. ATFNewYork/X
Adams also hurried down to Trump’s inauguration on a middle-of-the-night invite hours before the ceremony and flew to have lunch with the then-president-elect at one of his golf clubs near Mar-a-Lago.
In addition, his celebrity attorney Alex Spiro had been working through legal back channels to find some way out of the case with either a pardon or dismissal.
On Jan. 31, the mayor’s defense team met with some of the highest members of the DOJ in Washington D.C.
“As I said from the outset, the mayor is innocent—and he would prevail. Today he has,” Spiro said in a statement.
5 Trump spotted “thanking’” Eric Adams in viral exchange at UFC. @sagesteele/X
“The facts of the case are clear: the mayor never used his official position for personal benefit. Nor did he have any role in violating campaign finance laws. Despite a lot of fanfare and sensational claims, ultimately there was no evidence presented that he broke any laws, ever. The witnesses that were promised never materialized. The additional charges that were threatened never came. Now, thankfully, the mayor and New York can put this unfortunate and misguided prosecution behind them.”
In a footnote, Bove’s letter contended there wasn’t a quid pro quo between Adams and the Trump administration.
“(The) Government is not offering to exchange dismissal of a criminal case for Adams’s assistance on immigration enforcement,” it states.
Unencumbered by the looming potential prison time, Adams can now pivot to what still is expected to be a bruising primary with a slate of Dems looking to dethrone a seemingly vulnerable incumbent mayor.
The bribery case, though, was just one of the issues that dragged down Adams’ poll numbers to record lows — including crime, the migrant crisis and a cast of cronies brought into the admin by the mayor who have also found themselves in similar legal troubles.
News of the investigation burst onto the scene in November 2023 when Adams’ top fundraiser, Brianna Suggs, was raided by the feds forcing the mayor to abruptly return from Washington DC just moments after landing.
Agents also raided Brooklyn-based KSK Construction and the homes of Rana Abbsova, a longtime Adams staffer, and Cenk Öcal, a former Turkish Airline executive and member of the mayoral transition team.
Days later, the feds stopped Adams on the street and ordered him to hand over all his electronic devices, including a phone that he “forgot” the password for and feds have been unable to access.
On Sept. 26, then-US Attorney Damian Williams’ Southern District of New York office unveiled the indictment against the mayor.
For months, the mayor’s high-profile attorney Spiro has tried to convince the Biden DOJ and the judge hearing the case to dismiss the case to no avail.
After Trump’s election, Williams resigned from his post and argued in a City & State op-ed that the city was “being led with a broken ethical compass” – a remark that Spiro seized upon and argued showed that the former prosecutor went after Adams to further his political career.
The argument featured in the dismissal letter, which contended they “created appearances of impropriety.”
Judge Dale Ho, who has heard the case in Manhattan federal court, will still have to sign off on the dismissal, however, that appears to just be a formality with prosecutors saying they have no intention of continuing the case.
The dismissal could also threaten the Southern District’s reputation for independence from the political winds blowing Washington, DC – a distinction that has earned it the nickname the “Sovereign District.”
Acting Manhattan US Attorney Danielle Sassoon, a veteran prosecutor who helped convict scruffy crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, had shot down Adams’ claims that he was indicted for “any reason other than his crimes.”
“That claim disintegrated when discovery made clear that the investigation into Adams began more than a year earlier, based on concrete evidence that Adams had accepted illegal campaign contributions,” she wrote in a recent filing hinting at further charges against the mayor.
Sassoon, however, is likely to soon be replaced by Trump’s pick Jay Clayton, a former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.