Federal prosecutor's bold resignation sparks debate on political interference in justice

Sassoon, 38, had been appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) on a temporary basis just weeks earlier, as Trump began his second term in office. But when Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered her to dismiss corruption charges against Adams—a Democrat who had recently strengthened ties with the Republican president—Sassoon refused, calling the move a violation of the rule of law.

“I understand my duty as a prosecutor to mean enforcing the law impartially, and that includes prosecuting a validly returned indictment regardless of whether its dismissal would be politically advantageous to the defendant or those who appointed me,” Sassoon wrote in her resignation letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Adams, who has pleaded not guilty to charges that he accepted bribes from Turkish officials, has argued that federal prosecutors under former President Joe Biden unfairly targeted him for his criticism of the administration’s immigration policies. The DOJ, now under Trump, justified dismissing the case by claiming it was distracting Adams from helping with the president’s renewed crackdown on immigration.

Sassoon sharply criticized that rationale.

“It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment,” she wrote.

Her refusal to comply put her in what legal experts described as a no-win situation. Dropping the case would have been seen as compromising the SDNY’s reputation for independence, while standing her ground made her position untenable under the Trump administration.

Sassoon’s legal pedigree is formidable. After studying history and literature at Harvard, she earned her law degree from Yale and clerked for the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. She later joined SDNY in 2016, taking on high-profile prosecutions, including securing the conviction of Lawrence Ray, who was sentenced to 60 years for sex trafficking.

She also made headlines for her cross-examination of former cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, helping secure his fraud conviction for stealing $8 billion from customers.

The granddaughter of a Jewish woman who fled Syria before Israel’s creation in 1948, Sassoon has long positioned herself as unafraid of controversy. A member of the conservative-leaning Federalist Society, she once praised Scalia’s rejection of political correctness, crediting him with teaching her resilience in a male-dominated field.

Her resignation is likely to fuel further debate over the role of politics in federal prosecutions. But for Sassoon, the decision appears to be a simple one—staying true to the principles of law, even at the cost of her position.