[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. The suspension of the federal corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams took quite a couple of turns since yesterday's show. Let's catch up. For one thing, Adams suddenly announced a reversal in city policy. Did you hear this yet? It's so new. Adams will now allow immigration enforcement officials, ICE, to work on Rikers Island, where most of those incarcerated have been accused but not convicted of crimes. They were not previously allowed on Rikers.

The current lead prosecutor in the case against Adams, acting US Attorney Danielle Sassoon, resigned in protest and sent a sharply worded letter that was obtained and published by The New York Times. Among other things, it said this about Adams and enthusiasm for Trump immigration policies, "Rather than be rewarded, Adams advocacy should be called out for what it is, an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case." She called it a bargain. In other words, she's calling it a bribe.

Sassoon also revealed that additional charges against Adams were going to be released, including that the mayor, "Destroyed and instructed others to to destroy evidence," and that more details would have been forthcoming about his alleged fraudulent straw donor scheme. WNYC public safety reporter Samantha Max has seen the letter and joins us now. Hi, Sam. Welcome back to the show.

Samantha Max: Good morning.

Brian Lehrer: Who is this? Acting US attorney Danielle Sassoon. This is not a publicly well-known name. Your article mentions that she's a Republican. Was she put in the job by Trump?

Samantha Max: Danielle Sassoon, she has been at the Southern District of New York since 2016, but she just stepped into this role as acting US attorney leading the US attorney's office for the Southern District of New York a few weeks ago. The person who had been in the job under the prior administration resigned after Trump was elected. That was Damian Williams. Then there was another interim.

Then Ms. Sassoon was bumped up to the position after serving lower down in the office. As I said, she has been at the Southern District for almost a decade now. Most recently, the biggest case that she has prosecuted was against Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto executive. She has worked in private practice as well. She also was a law clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia early on in her career.

Brian Lehrer: That was quite a burn on Mayor Adams, saying his advocacy for Trump immigration policies, "Should be called out for what it is, an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case." I've heard the mayor say in previous weeks, Sam, that his positions on immigration enforcement predated Trump's election, that he always said that Mayor de Blasio sanctuary city reforms went too far and contributed to crime in New York City. In fairness To Adams, did US attorney Sassoon specify what advocacy she was referring to that she charges as a quid pro quo? I think that came before this new policy on ICE and Rikers.

Samantha Max: I think one line in the letter that explains less so her stance on the particular policies, but more so what she's trying to say about how these policies are being used in a political way. I'll just read from it, "It is breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams' opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment." I think the concern is that is a mayor--

Obviously, the mayor has spoken a lot about immigration in recent months and over the years. This isn't something that is completely new for him to be taking an aggressive stance on immigration, but the idea that he would perhaps be catering his stances on policies toward whatever the Trump administration is asking him if there is a chance that they can, on the one hand, reward him by dropping the case, and on the other hand, punish him by bringing back the charges. At this point, the charges wouldn't be completely gone away forever. They would be dismissed in a way that there would still be an opportunity to bring them back in the future.

Brian Lehrer: Adams denies wrongdoing of any kind and says the prosecution of him was a weaponization of the Justice Department by Biden officials because Adams criticized Biden's immigration policies. How much detail, if any, did Sassoon's letter give about the new charges of destroying evidence and instructing others to destroy evidence that she said would have been brought against him.

Samantha Max: Let's see what the letter says. We had heard a few weeks ago, or we had seen in a filing in the court case that there had been evidence of additional criminal conduct that law enforcement had found, which hinted at something that prosecutors had already said before, which was that there was a possibility for more charges against Adams. Now we are seeing in this letter that the office is prepared to seek a superseding indictment from a new grand jury, and that they had proposed a superseding indictment that would add obstruction conspiracy charge on evidence that Adams destroyed and instructed others to destroy evidence and provide false information to the FBI.

Something that came up initially in the indictment was the use of, for instance, encrypted messaging apps, people being instructed to potentially delete messages. Or there was also in the indictment, I think, a statement that the mayor was regularly not-- I believe that it was he was deleting messages or having-- There are apps that allow you to have settings where you can automatically delete messages. There's a chance that it could be related to that. Of course, we don't have that superseding indictment, so we don't know exactly what the allegations would be.

Brian Lehrer: There, from the original indictment is an accusation of destruction of evidence. I guess what attorney Sassoon was indicating is that that would have been brought as a separate charge. That's what it sounds like to me.

Samantha Max: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, and listeners, I see some calls are coming in. Yes, you can weigh in on this or ask our public safety reporter Samantha Max a question about these latest developments around the dropping of the Adams case and his new policy allowing ICE into Rikers and the resignation of the US attorney. So many moving parts in the last day. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text.

Sassoon's letter was written to the new attorney general, Pam Bondi. It's really an extraordinary indictment of allegedly the politicization of the justice system in the United States, that it could be used explicitly to let an accused criminal avoid trial after his lawyers offered that he would help carry out Trump's policy goals. Then [unintelligible 00:07:59] announces new plans to do exactly that. Has Bondi or her deputy, Emil Bove-- does he say Bove or Bove?

Samantha Max: I believe it's Bove.

Brian Lehrer: Responded publicly to the letter last you saw?

Samantha Max: Bove has sent his own extensive letter accepting Sassoon's resignation, but also criticizing her actions and saying that there will be a review of everything that has gone down.

Brian Lehrer: Your article reports that Bove not only accused Sassoon of insubordination, but that she and two other prosecutors who worked on the Adams case would be investigated themselves. Are we about to see a case of investigation as retribution for a prosecutorial policy dispute, which would be a further abandonment of the rule of law? Or did Bove specify on what grounds an investigation, rather than just a dismissal, might take place?

Samantha Max: In his letter, he is saying that the AUSAs or the Assistant US Attorneys who are principally responsible for this case are being placed on administrative leave and that they're going to be investigated by the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of Professional Responsibility, which he says are also going to be evaluating Ms. Sassoon's conduct. Why he's saying--

Brian Lehrer: She hasn't said yet on what grounds exactly, right?

Samantha Max: Not exactly, but he is saying that there's a chance for, at the end of these investigations, for termination or some other action. Of course, she is already resigning, but perhaps the other two could be terminated at the end of the investigation, they're saying. He does mention her unwillingness to comply in this same paragraph where he is talking about an investigation. We don't know exactly what that investigation will entail and what the grounds would be for potential punishment or termination.

Brian Lehrer: I don't know if you saw this this morning. I did not. If you did, tell me if this listener's text describes something that happened on Fox this morning accurately. This says, "Adams and Holman," Trump's borders tzar, "Were on Fox and Friends together just this morning laughing it up with Holman warning to Adams if he doesn't come through, I'll be in his office, up his butt saying, 'Where the hell is the agreement we came to?'" From this viewer's take on what they saw on TV. The listener writes this quid pro quo is unfolding right before us on national TV. Did you happen to see that this morning?

Samantha Max: I was actually just listening right before I stepped onto this zoom.

Brian Lehrer: Did they get that right?

Samantha Max: I don't remember the exact wording, but it was something along the lines of that. I did hear laughter, at least for sure.

Brian Lehrer: Adam's did do something new and significant in this area yesterday after the charges against him were dropped. He loosened the sanctuary city policy to allow ICE agents into the Rikers Island jail complex. Important to note that Rikers Island as a jail, not a prison, is primarily a place where people accused of crimes who have not yet been convicted of crimes are held while they await trial.

That's definitely been an issue between the Democrats and the Republicans. Should people only be subject to deportation after they've been convicted of crimes or only when they're accused? Whereas the due process is the argument for waiting. The Times says the mayor's, "Executive order seems to get around New York City sanctuary laws designed to prevent cooperation with the enforcement of federal immigration law." Is it clear to you what ICE will do now at Rikers? Will they be checking prisoners immigration status and removing those who are here illegally and move them to immigration detention facilities to stand for deportation proceedings even before they stand for trial?

Samantha Max: My understanding is that there is not an official executive order yet. The mayor just announced last night that he and the border czar, Tom Holman are working on implementing an executive order. In that announcement, he says that ICE agents would be focused on working with the correctional intelligence bureau in criminal investigations, focusing in particular on violent crime and gang violence, and that they're also going to be looking into embedding more NYPD detectives into federal task forces that would be looking into similar types of crimes.

We'll have to wait to see what exactly is in that executive order, but at the moment, New York City has pretty strict regulations around when immigration officials can detain someone on Rikers. They need to have something called a judicial warrant. That is a warrant that's actually signed by a judge, which requires a certain amount of belief that there's evidence of a reason that that person should be detained.

In addition to that warrant, the person is also either supposed to be convicted of a violent or serious crime or a possible match in a terrorist screening database. There's really specific parameters that are supposed to be followed before an ICE agent is just walking onto Rikers and taking someone into immigration custody who is their pre trial on a different criminal charge.

Brian Lehrer: So I gather that City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is saying that Adams didn't really find a legitimate loophole in the sanctuary city law, and she's going to try to do something to stop this from going forward. We'll see what happens with that. By the way, thanks to our producer Mary Croke for being on it after that listener texted their account of what happened on Fox and Friends this morning. The New York Times apparently has just dropped an article on Adams on Fox and Friends, and Mary pulled it right up. Here's a little bit of what The Time says. It does seem that our listener is a reliable reporter and got those quotes basically right.

The opening paragraph of the Times story says, "If Mayor Eric Adams of New York City wanted to dispel fears that he was beholden to the Trump administration in exchange for its maneuvering to have his criminal case dropped, his appearance on Fox and Friends on Friday morning seemed to have the opposite effect." Then a little further down, it has the Tom Honan quote that the listener mentioned. "If he doesn't come through, I'll be back in New York City and we won't be sitting on the couch. I'll be in his office, up his butt saying, 'Where the hell is the agreement we came to?'" Wow, Sam. There he is on television saying, "Yes, you agreed to do policy in exchange for dropping your criminal charges." It's unbelievable.

Samantha Max: It is laid very bare in the memo that Emil Bove sent earlier this month directing the US attorney's office to drop these charges. It specifically says that they want the mayor to be able to devote his full attention and resources to illegal immigration and violent crime, and that they want him to be able to be focusing on this issue that's very important to the Trump administration. I was listening to The Daily this morning, and their analysis was that this is not a backroom conversation that's happening. It's being laid out in these papers that are available to the public now.

Brian Lehrer: William in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, William.

William: Thank you very much. I have a question going back to really my concern about what Trump, Pullman, Stephen Miller and Adams are trying to push in New York, which is sending ICE to hospitals, to schools, to churches, to temples, to gurdwaras. I work near Lincoln Hospital and I've talked to doctors working there. We're going to see women avoiding prenatal care because they're scared to go in because they happen to be undocumented. Then we're going to see kids not showing up at school, and their mental health is going to suffer.

I heard your story today about somebody giving birth on the subway. I think to really take it back to what's at stake, we're going to see women miscarrying on the subway or kids jumping in front of trains because Adams is giving them Trump. My question is, what can we do? I'll be supporting somebody else, Jessica Ramos, for mayor this year, but my question is, right now, what can we do to get Adams out? Because that's the real impact, seriously.

I talk to doctors, they're traumatized. I talk to nurses, they're upset. I talk to teachers, they're upset. What are your thoughts on what we as residents of New York can do to make sure we don't have those kind of tragedies? The Trump administration is not about just supporting gang members. It's about deporting honest, hardworking folks who are avoiding medical care, who are not sending their kids to school because of the fear that ICE has created the communities.

I do work in Jackson Heights. It's very impacted, the community. The economy of Jackson Heights is terrible right now. You go on Roosevelt Avenue, businesses are suffering. Especially if you're talking about women avoiding prenatal care, kids not going to school, their mental health is going to suffer. What do you think we as residents in New York can do to stand up for that agenda? Because that's what ICE is doing in New York, and anybody that's paying attention knows that.

Brian Lehrer: William, thank you very much. I'm not sure that the new policy of allowing ICE to go into sensitive locations like hospitals and churches and schools would be any different if Adams was out. Maybe it would take city cooperation for that to be fully implemented. Sam, I don't know if, but what do you think? If there was a more Trump-resistant mayor, would it be harder for them to do the kind of thing that William is raising as a concern, going to hospitals where, perhaps, for example, undocumented women aren't getting prenatal care or even giving birth outside the medical system?

Samantha Max: It's definitely difficult to assess a hypothetical, but I guess the thing that I would say is that there are spaces that are open to the public and there are spaces that require access if you don't have or that require certain judicial warrants that let someone in. If there's a situation where there's a space that requires access for an ICE official to be able to go in, there need to be certain directives in place about who is allowed and when.

A conversation that has been going back and forth in the last few weeks is the messaging that has been coming from the mayor's office about how city agencies should respond when an ICE official comes. There have been some questions about what the parameters should be for when ICE officials are allowed to enter, say, a homeless shelter or a hospital or something like that.

Brian Lehrer: I want to respect the fact that William's essential question was, what can people who object to what Adams and Trump are doing make their voices heard in an effective way? At least one listener, I think, is calling with a suggestion along those lines. Joe in Flatbush, you're on WNYC. Hello, Joe.

Joe: Hi, Brian. I have less of a suggestion than a question. I really appreciated William's call, but my question isn't what politicians can we rely on, but what the hell are we going to do about this? I wish we did have better people who could stand up to Trump, but I'm wondering where all the protests are. Where's the mass resistance to what he's doing? This is this is just terrible. I really appreciate all your reporting on this. Every day it's like a new war, just cascading nightmares between what they're doing with ICE and this DOGE madness. I think we need to get organized. I don't know how to do it, but if anyone has any suggestions as to things that are going on, I'd love to hear it.

Brian Lehrer: Joe, thank you.

Joe: I think the onus is on us. Thank you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: It is. Sam, I think this is outside your beat. We are expecting one of our local members of Congress to be our next guest in just a few minutes, so we will plan to ask him. Definitely one of the questions since Trump has taken office for those who oppose his policies is, where is the mass resistance, just as Joe and Flatbush is asking. Compared to Trump one, where there was the women's march right away, there were protests at airports against the so called Muslim ban. They haven't really mobilized this time. Again, I don't know if this is in your portfolio, you're a local public safety reporter, but you have anything on that or hearing anything on that?

Samantha Max: I guess what I will say is just my experience speaking with New Yorkers across the city in my reporting. There is definitely over really the last few years, just a shift in tone about the issues that matter to people and how people feel about them. I think that the New York City of the first Trump administration is different than the New York City of the second Trump administration. For instance, I spent the fall covering Daniel Penny's trial in Manhattan. That was a space where I really saw different attitudes in New York City about public safety.

I think that people's feelings about public safety, subway safety, immigration, are all very intertwined and based on concerns that people have, but also what they hear from politicians and what they hear in the rhetoric, whether it's on social media or on the news or wherever else. I think that our local elected officials do really set the tone a lot of the times.

I think that the fact that Mayor Adams was elected and the stances that he has about immigration speak to how some New Yorkers feel. I think the real question will be, regardless of what happens with his criminal charges, when we do have an election in a few months, whether people will still be supportive of his stance. I think that will say a lot about how people are feeling right now about immigration in New York City.

Brian Lehrer: There was just polling that showed New Yorkers generally don't like Eric Adams but they're much more favorable toward his policies. As you know from when you came on the show during the Daniel Penny trial, when you were reporting from the courtroom and came on here on the days off from the trial, certainly our listeners were very divided on that. Some people thought it was outrageous, what Daniel Penney did, and he should be convicted of a crime. Other people called and thought it was outrageous that he was charged with the crime. Definitely there are many New Yorkers on each side of these issues.

Last thing, to the question of something that somebody could do about Eric Adams if he's genuinely compromised. Governor Hochul went on Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC last night and did not rule out using her power to remove Adams from office over allegedly being compromised now, beholden to Trump a conflict of interest as he is supposed to be just representing the best interests of the city.

Hochul herself has been trying to toughen up her image on public safety along the lines of what we were just discussing about how the New York state public views these issues. Toughening up her image, including on the deportation of violent criminals, as she gets ready to run for reelection herself next year. Are you hearing any political analysis of the dilemma facing Hochul now as some people are calling for her to use her power to remove Eric Adams?

Samantha Max: I would definitely defer to my colleagues up in Albany, Jon Campbell and Jimmy Vielkind. I will just reiterate what I've been hearing from voters and what we know from the last gubernatorial election when it was closer than expected. That was largely because of the Republicans messaging around public safety. It not only affected Hochul, but it also affected the House races that year. Since then, the Democrats have definitely-- a lot of them have been taking a tougher stance on public safety and on immigration. Now we're just going to have to see, in this different national political climate, how that's going to affect the messaging here in New York City. I think the developments with the mayor's case really just add a whole new layer of nuance to it.

Brian Lehrer: WNYC public safety reporter Samantha Max, thanks for coming on and explaining some of this. Listeners, you can read Samantha's reporting on this and other local public safety stories on Gothamist. Thanks, Sam.

Samantha Max: Thanks, Brian.

Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.