NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Justice Department lawyers and Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday faced a federal judge in Manhattan who is signaling that he’s unlikely to rubber stamp their request to drop the mayor's corruption charges weeks before an April trial. Meanwhile, Gov. Kathy Hochul is weighing whether or not to remove Adams, who has denied the charges in the case as well as an alleged "quid pro quo" with the Trump administration.
HERE'S THE LATEST:
3:30 PM -- Judge will take time to review all material, will not immediately rule
The federal judge considering the Justice Department's request to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Wednesday that he won't rule immediately and will take time to review all materials.
Adams told Judge Dale E. Ho that he is innocent and doesn’t fear corruption charges could be refiled if a Justice Department request to dismiss them is granted.
“I am going to take everything you said under careful consideration,” Ho said at the end of the hearing.
3 PM -- Corruption charges against mayor dropped under Trump executive order, says deputy U.S. attorney general
Deputy U.S. Attorney General Emil Bove said the request to drop the corruption charges against the mayor resulted from “a straightforward exercise in prosecutorial discretion guided” by President Donald Trump’s executive order on weaponization of the justice system and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s memorandum outlining the same.
Bove said he believed the request to drop charges, when tied to Trump’s order and Bondi’s conclusions, made it “virtually unreviewable in this courtroom.
Bove said he also believed “the continuation of this prosecution is interfering with both national security and immigration enforcement initiatives being carried out by the executive branch.”
2:35 PM -- Adams tells judge he agreed charges should be dropped
Judge Dale E. Ho questioned Adams at the start of a hearing Wednesday to ensure he agreed with the Justice Department’s request to drop corruption charges against him weeks before an April trial.
The judge said he wanted to confirm that the mayor had agreed that the charges would be dropped with the possibility they could be reinstated at a later date.
“Yes, your honor,” the mayor said.
Then, the judge asked him questions to ensure he understood that if the charges were dropped, they could later be reinstated. “I have not committed a crime,” Adams said. “I’m not afraid of that.”
1:30 PM -- Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove will appear for Justice Department
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove—who penned the letter to former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon last week ordering that prosecutors drop charges against Adams—will appear in court for the Justice Department, according to the court docket.
Bove is a former assistant U.S. attorney and served as co-counsel on President Donald Trump's defense during his hush money trial last year.
10:45 AM -- Who would replace Adams? Meet Jumaane Williams
Jumaane Williams, New York City’s public advocate, has for nearly six months been on alert for a call that could come at any time.
The 48-year-old is in a unique position: Many New Yorkers don’t know who he is, or that the role of public advocate even exists, but he may be on the cusp of becoming the city's leader.
If Adams resigns or is removed, Williams, a progressive Democrat, would suddenly go from overseeing several dozen employees and a $5 million budget to running an entire city government with 300,000 workers and $115 billion in annual spending. His job is vaguely defined but has served as a springboard for previous occupants, like former Mayor Bill de Blasio, to seek higher office.
Adams has so far been defiant, resisting calls from across the Democratic party to step down -- including from Williams, who said the mayor is “entirely beholden to the favor of the president and his agenda.” The mayor has also gone after Williams directly.
"I still don't know what he does, but it's hard to serve the city when you wake up at noon,” Adams, a former police captain, said of Williams to a crowd of supporters. “If I stepped down, the public advocate becomes the mayor, so can you imagine turning the city over to him? That is the top reason not to step down.”
8 AM -- What to know about Wednesday's court hearing
Judge Dale E. Ho is summoning the parties to his Manhattan courtroom as he seeks to drill down on the Justice Department's drive to end the case and the mayor’s willingness to go along with that.
Ho has already indicated that Wednesday's hearing is likely to be only an initial step when he wrote in an order Tuesday that one subject on the agenda will be a discussion of “procedure for resolution of the motion.”
Rather than simply sign the blank space above his name on the government’s dismissal motion, Ho is seeking more information, interrogating motives and soliciting input from both sides on his options to resolve the matter.
Among the topics set for discussion are the reasons for the request to dismiss the indictment that charges the first-term mayor with accepting over $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks from a Turkish official and business leaders seeking to buy his influence while he was Brooklyn borough president. He has pleaded not guilty.
On Monday, three former U.S. attorneys from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut submitted papers to Ho suggesting that he appoint a special prosecutor if he finds the Justice Department acted improperly or that he order all evidence be made available to state and local prosecutors.
Hochul is said to be waiting for a decision by the judge before making a decision about whether or not to remove Adams from office.
7:30 AM -- What to know about Judge Dale E. Ho
It's up to Judge Dale E. Ho, a second-year federal judge in Manhattan, to decide if Adams' corruption case goes away.
It's the biggest challenge of Ho's young judicial career, pitting the political pursuits of new Justice Department leadership in Washington against the objections of federal prosecutors who charged Adams last September.
Ho has moved deliberately since the Justice Department’s second-in-command, Emil Bove, the acting deputy attorney general, stepped in and filed paperwork last Friday asking him to dismiss the case.
Ho, 47, was first nominated to the Manhattan federal bench by then-President Joe Biden in September 2021. But his civil rights background and admittedly “overheated rhetoric” on social media — including posts criticizing conservative members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voting on his nomination — made for a lengthy and contentious confirmation process.
Biden resubmitted Ho’s nomination after midterm elections and the Senate confirmed him in June 2023 in a 50-49 party-line vote. Ho was sworn in two months later and was on the bench for about a year before Adams’ corruption case landed in his courtroom — a randomly generated assignment.
Ho has taken a hard line on Adams before. In December, the judge issued a 30-page ruling rejecting the mayor's request to dismiss a bribery count, one of five charges against him. Last month, Ho rejected the mayor's request for an inquiry into purported grand jury leaks, finding that he hadn't provided any evidence to back his claim.
Ho, the son of Filipino immigrants, was born and raised in San Jose, California, and now lives in Brooklyn, where he has served on the 2018 New York City Charter Revision Commission that capped the size of financial contributions to candidates for certain elected city offices.
Ho graduated summa cum laude from Princeton in 1999 and he earned his law degree from Yale in 2005. In between, he started his career as a paralegal at the Manhattan district attorney’s office — down the street from the court where he now works — and was later a law clerk for a Manhattan federal judge.
In 2019, Ho argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in successfully challenging the first Trump administration’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the Census. In 2020, he argued before the high court in challenging a Trump memorandum directing that undocumented immigrants be excluded from the population base used to apportion House seats. Ho's side lost, but Biden reversed Trump's memo when he took office.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.