Tuesday,
February 18, 2025
Year : 2, Issue: 25
NY1: New York City Mayor Eric Adams will face the federal judge on Wednesday who will decide whether to grant the Justice Department’s request to dismiss corruption charges against him after lawyers explain the abrupt change in position just weeks before an April trial.
Judge Dale E. Ho in Manhattan scheduled an afternoon hearing in a written order Tuesday as his first response to the government’s Friday request to dismiss the charges after a weeklong clash among government lawyers that led to resignations by several top prosecutors in Washington and New York who refused to seek dismissal.
Ho said the parties in the case must be prepared to address the reasons for the government’s dismissal request, the “scope and effect of Mayor Adams’s ‘consent in writing,’” … and the “procedure for resolution of the motion.”
At the start of his two-page order, Ho quoted from an opinion by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan that said Rule 48(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which governs the government’s request, was not created to shift absolute power from the Executive to the Judicial Branch but was intended “as a power to check power.”
The hearing will occur as a growing number of former prosecutors express concerns about the past week’s events, with some calling on Ho to conduct an inquiry that could put Washington’s Justice Department leadership under a spotlight.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Monday she is weighing removing Adams from office.
