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.
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.”
An indictment charges the first-term Democrat with accepting more than $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks from a Turkish official and business leaders seeking to buy Adams' influence while he was Brooklyn borough president. Adams has pleaded not guilty.
The decision to drop the charges have drawn accusations of an arrangement that gave the mayor a pass in exchange for his cooperation on immigration enforcement.
Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul is considering whether to remove Adams from office.
