As the Thursday Night Massacre Turns into Friday Morning
Hagen Scotten, the lead prosecutor on the Eric Adams case, has joined at least six other attorneys in leaving DOJ rather than carry out Trump’s alleged quid pro quo with Eric Adams.
His letter (posted by NYT) is one for the ages:
I have received correspondence indicating that I refused your order to move to dismiss the indictment against Eric Adams without prejudice, subject to certain conditions, including the express possibility of reinstatement of the indictment. That is not exactly correct. The U.S. Attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon, never asked me to file such a motion, and I therefore never had an opportunity to refuse.
But I am entirely in agreement with her decision not to do so, for the reasons stated in her February 12, 2025 letter to the Attorney General. In short, the first justification for the motion—that Damian Williams’s role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence, and pursued under four different U.S. attorneys—is so weak as to be transparently pretextual. The second justification is worse. No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.
There is a tradition in public service of resigning in a last-ditch effort to head off a serious mistake . Some will view the mistake you are committing here in the light of their generally negative views of the new Administration. I do not share those views. I can even understand how a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal. But any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.
Please consider this my resignation. It has been an honor to serve as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York
As NYT described, Scotten is a former Special Forces Officer and clerked for both Bret Kavanaugh and John Roberts.
Mr. Scotten served three combat tours in Iraq as a U.S. Army Special Forces Officer and earned two Bronze Stars. He graduated from Harvard Law School and clerked for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court, and for Brett M. Kavanaugh before he, too, became an Supreme Court justice.
Earlier today, I perused the Murdoch press and there is nothing so far about this burgeoning scandal. I’ve seen no comment from Republican members of Congress, and frankly far too little from Democrats.
But this may already be teed up to go to SCOTUS. And when it does, some of the loudest voices will be those of conservative lawyers who refused to be party to an alleged quid pro quo.
Update: Brad Heath reports that DOJ finally found someone to sign the motion to dismiss.
That is a good resignation letter. I am sorry, but not surprised, that the DOJ found someone to sign the letter, even if it was for obstensibly noble reasons.
Thank you for that update from Brad Heath. I am looking forward to more comedy gold from Chad Mizelle. So absurdly funny! He probably said with a straight face too.
‘Chad Mizelle, chief of staff to the attorney general, said the decision to dismiss Adams’ indictment “is yet another indication that this DOJ will return to its core function of prosecuting dangerous criminals, not pursuing politically motivated witch hunts.”‘
What is this SDNY AUSA going to say to Judge Ho? I hope it’s “Bove made me sign it”. Ho should refuse to dismiss unless Bove signs, then dismiss WITH prejudice. IANAL, Can he do that?
I understand that it’s a Main Justice, Public Integrity Section lawyer.
I believe Bove yanked case from S.D.N.Y. and gave it to PIN to deal with. The leadership of PIN refused and resigned. Bove then gave a 1 hour ultimatum to the remaining Public Integrity lawyers ( around 22) that they would all be fired if no-one amongst them agree to sign and file the motion. Apparently one has and seemingly to prevent everyone being fired.
I’m sure I will be corrected if I have any of that wrong.
The next issue is how this attorney is going to explain the circumstances of why and how he/she is appearing in front of Judge Ho with this motion, instead of S.D.N.Y. colleagues previously on record in the case.
“how this attorney is going to explain the circumstances of why and how he/she is appearing in front of Judge Ho”
He/she should give the judge in open court a blow-by-blow timeline of what transpired, retract the motion, and then resign on the spot.
The judge will almost certainly require a blow by blow account.
I am a bit surprised that it is assumed the lawyer in question has capitulated and is definitely inclined to act in bad faith.
That may not be the case.
He/she may have already calculated that they were always going to be required to provide an explanation and that they would be candid on the record.
They can hardly be dismissed or disciplined for answering direct questions directly.
The trick for the advocate to pull off, if this is their inclination, is:
not to give away their intentions beforehand to Bove’s goons so not being seen by them to file anything which might tips the goons off; but nevertheless also to signal to the Court that he/she will more than willingly give up the goods if asked the correct questions, which of course they are obliged to answer.
So “retract the motion and resign on the spot” is one possible outcome I suppose, but a dimwitted one and not particularly likely
If the person is a supine stooge for Bove, that won’t happen. If that is the case, not knowing the background is their best strategy.
If they are not a supine stooge for Bove, it won’t happen either.
Ensuring the court is possessed of documents which enable it to ask astute questions is one way of doing this. And it should be easy enough for some disgruntled employee other than the advocate to ensure it happens.
The advocate might begin the hearing by stating that they are appearing in response to specific directions of the Acting Deputy AG having signed and filed a motion which was made under his specific orders and requirements. And so this application Is the official position of the Acting Deputy AG
the advocate might then allude in opening remarks to a great deal of information circulating in public which might be a cause for concern to the court, and may “prompt some very specific direct questions” that is probably enough of a hint of the true position of the advocate.
The advocate can hardly be blamed if an astute and well prepared Judge has pointed and direct questions that cannot be be avoided or evaded.
Have Bove, Spiros, and Adams committed a criminal conspiracy to violate NY Election laws?
[Moderator’s note: see your comment at 1:22 pm. /~Rayne]
As I recall Judge Ho is a visceral supporter of Trump. I wouldn’t expect push back on dismissal by him.
You may be thinking of somebody else.
Careful. Name alert regarding “Judge Ho”. Dale Edwin Ho (born 1977) is an American lawyer serving as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Hide he, hide he, tidy Ho
Gonna find him a piece of the sky
Gonna find him some of that old sweet roll
Singing Hide he, hide he, tidy Ho
I had the same confusion. You’re thinking of Judge James Ho, 5th Circuit of Appeals judge from Texas, who was a law clerk under Clarence Thomas, and known for hardline anti-immigrant judgments. If Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination was ever in peril, Ho was next in line on Trump’s Supreme Court choices.
TBH, the WSJ has probably been the paper hammering Trump the hardest, I don’ read the op-ed section, and this is very much headlined on their front page. I’ve been using them the most, their coverage is at least 3x what Bloomberg (just for comps) does.
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Thanks for suggesting I did not check (and screen cap) when I wrote this post.
NYT is leading this story. WSJ is doing an okay job. But they did not have anything on their front page when I was working on this.
“Reuters could not immediately determine the name of the prosecutor, though the names of attorneys filing motions normally appear on those motions when they become public.” – I hope it’s someone on the verge of retirement trying to save his colleagues, because it’s probably the end of his career as a lawyer. See Bork, Robert.
His name is Ed Sullivan, a veteran career prosecutor. And Bork’s career did not exactly “end” when he did Nixon’s vile bidding.
Is he into “really big shews”?
(Sorry, showing my age!)
The SC’s majorities clerks and small armies of friends have probably been gaming out dozens of possible eventualities at an ever accelerating pace for a year. Some of them may plug into this one.
Will the judge in the case be aware of the resignation letters? Do judges have to refrain from reading about cases before them?
I believe DoJ finally *extorted* a career prosecutor into dismissing Eric Adams’s case.
“Some day, and that day may never come, I will ask you to do a service for me.”
{Raspy voice] Some day – and may that day never come – I will call upon you for a favor.’
The people who thought this story was over last night are the same ones who think Jason is really dead halfway through a Friday the 13th movie.
I read the title, and been hoping this is related to the other Valentine’s day massacre, the one where 200,000 fed employees have been illegally fired for a made-up cause, so they are not even entitled to severance.
Not saying the Hagen Scotten story is not important, of course (it is very important), but the other story is just very important to me. And also frustrated by all the media who are too afraid to say this is illegal.
I’m afraid the firing of all probationary federal employees probably isn’t illegal. It’s stupid as hell, how are you going to maintain a workforce doing stuff like that? But probably legal.
Whether what Bove did is “illegal” in the sense that he could be prosecuted for it? Also probably no. He might face disbarment, though. I’ll guess he doesn’t care.
Also very short-sighted.
How would you like to be a recruiter for the USDA, and when you make the rounds at the college recruiting fairs, no one wants to talk to you? If you stop someone and ask why, the answer will be something like this:”Sorry, I’m looking for a job that after I relocate I don’t get tossed out the door in a couple of months, not for something I’ve done but because someone wants to sweep house of everyone new. And no, I don’t trust that this won’t happen again.”
Not to mention the damage you do to the existing workplace culture. The institution at which I presently work did a RIF a few years before I was hired, in which a few employees were told on arrival in the morning that they had been terminated and were escorted out by security. People who lived through that were still talking about it a decade and more later.
Making former USG employees unemployable and the USG anathema to new hires is entirely the point.
Replying to EOH . . .
I have a feeling that a fair number of these newly involuntarily former USG employees will have no problem finding a new job.
Some of these massacre victims at the DOJ I suspect will receive multiple job offers from well-heeled firms. “We need more lawyers who stand up for the law rather than engage in bullshit.”
Many of those “probationary” workers had been there more than a year and were doing excellent work. In a sane world, they’d be kept.
ToldainDarkwater: It is illegal.
This is in violation of the law and regulations. The regulations are very clear (5 CFR 315.803, 4 CFR 315.804). A probationary employee is not an “at-will” employee. They can be dismissed on a case-by-case basis due to either specific performance issues or conduct, and the termination letter should, at minimum, contain specific information about the inadequacies of their performance.
Firing 200,000 employees with blanket languages stating they are dismissed due to “performance”, without anything about the performance issues, when many of them have stellar reviews and performance awards, is a violation.
They could use a RIF to dismiss probationary employees without a cause, but RIF comes with its own protections, require 60 day notice of the RIF etc. What they did here is dismiss probies en-masse, claiming there are “Performance” issues without any details, to bypass a RIF. This is illegal.
I understand a lot of the letters didn’t have the form filled in – still had the [subject] stuff everywhere.
Thank you for this. Maybe there is hope. I’ll sleep better tonight.
I added a possibly helpful site at your previous comment.
Thanks for the kinks. I’ll check it out!
I scream, you scream, and Hagan does!
More like a Hagan *diss* as I read it. Still, hat tip to you, SL.
DOJ also announced it’s dropping the investigation of Vince McMahon for cover up of sexual misconduct. His wife Linda McMahon is trump’s pick for dept of education.
One of Sigourney Weaver’s lines from *Avatar* comes to mind: “They’re just pissing on us without even the courtesy of calling it rain.”
Well, Judge Ho could not stop DoJ from tanking the case like it did for Roger Stone and Michael Flynn or unintentional incompetence like Special Counsel Durham’s team did. But he should make DoJ go on the record at trial.
Hochul may yet pull the plug on Adams, precisely because he is being blackmailed by Convict-1. I also wonder where Bove is admitted to the bar, because I am pretty sure something like this should make it into a disbarment hearing if the quid pro quo is proved.
Proved? They (Homan and Adams) said it out loud in the Fox News interview together today.
It would be nice to see a sycophant arrested and charged over these illegal acts for no other reason but to see what the SCOTUS would do with the “I was just following orders” defense.