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 Trump instructed the Southern District of New York to dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning charges could be refiled 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.
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.
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Bove wrote that the charges have “improperly interfered with Mayor Adams’ campaign in the 2025 mayoral election” and also have “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 for 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.https://www.scribd.com/embeds/826530038/content?start_page=1&view_mode&access_key=key-uEe7hDt5QXTV42Lvx123
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.
A rep for the SDNY declined to comment.
Adams on Monday night offered a measured reaction to the news, telling a Fox News reporter while out to dinner with supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis that he had little information.
“We were just notified of the possibility that the DOJ has communicated with the local US Attorney’s Office here,” he said, according to video posted on X. “I would like to speak to [my lawyer] first and get a better understanding of exactly what’s taking place now because right now I don’t have any information.”
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.
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.
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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 its 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 to publicly align himself with new immigration policies.
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, DC.
“As I said from the outset, the mayor is innocent — and he would prevail. Today he has,” Spiro said in a statement.
“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 Airlines 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 it — 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, but that appears to be just 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 in Washington, DC — a distinction that has earned it the nickname the “Sovereign District.”