Take Note, America! (No, Don’t!—DOJ)

Trump's Department of Justice has now taken aim at note-taking, as well as honorable prosecutors upholding the rule of law.

The Resistant Grandmothern (TRG)

Apparently, note-taking in meetings is verboten, according to Emil Bove of Trump’s Department of Justice. But what is OK is condoning the lawlessness charged against New York’s Mayor Eric Adams by United States prosecutors. That’s evidenced by Donald Trump’s top Justice appointees dismissing Adams’ indictment while he helps Trump’s mass deportation scheme in the City of New York.

Bringing the hatchet
Bove’s note-taking ban became an important, much publicized footnote in Thursday’s forced resignations of Danielle Sassoon, the acting head of the New York United States attorneys’ office—the vaunted Southern District of New York, known familiarly as SDNY.

Emil Bove, the acting assistant attorney general since Jan. 20, came down hard on Sassoon when she refused to dismiss charges of bribery, foreign collusion, and betraying the people of New York in favor of his foreign connections.

Adams had flown down to Mar-a-Lago in January seeking the newly elected president’s help, and apparently the convicted felon who is our new president was inclined to accommodate, then sending the signal to the Department of Justice in Washington to get Adams out from under his legal woes.

Bove, a stern, hatchet-faced man familiar to those of us who followed Trump’s April-May prosecution by the Manhattan District of New York for committing fraud against voters in the 2016 election, was then on Trump’s defense team. That job seems to have landed his current position as the new number two at DOJ.

American heroine
Enter Danielle Sassoon, appointed in January by Donald Trump as the acting chief at SDNY and fired by Bove last Thursday for not going along with dismissing Adams’ charges “without prejudice.” That’s a legal term meaning the Trump team may reinstate the indictment at any time, thus effectively keeping Adams forever in their debt.

An experienced prosecutor, Sassoon is not of the opposite political persuasion to the party of the president who appointed her only three weeks ago to the job of heading up the most prestigious division in the panoplay of DOJ offices.

Only in her 30s, Sassoon had nonetheless crafted an impressive resume with sterling conservative Republican credentials: former law clerk to Reagan-appointed SCOTUS jurist Antonin Scalia and other Republican judges; federal attorney in New York, winning a guilty verdict and 25-year jail sentence for Sam Bankman-Fried for fraud and money-laundering; and a the successful prosecution of Lawrence V. Ray for running a sex-trafficking ring out of Sarah Lawrence College, for which he earned 60 years in jail..

But stellar credentials and legal skills would count less for succeeding in her new job than the expectation she perpetually bend her knee to Trump’s ways of doing justice. Just a few weeks into the job, Sassoon would have to choose between acting honorably as a United States prosecutor versus following the dictums of Trump’s DOJ.

Enter Adams, enter Trump
At issue were SDNY’s criminal indictments filed in September 2024 against the flamboyant, late-night partying Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. Charged with multiple counts of bribery, solicitation of illegal campaign contributions, and taking illegal benefits from foreign nationals to the detriment of the people of New York, Adams asserted his innocence in the face of solid evidence he had sought out “straw” donations from the government of Turkey, meaning the true donors disguised their money through U.S.-based “nominal” donors who falsely certified they were contributing their own money.

These “wealthy donors” evaded laws designed to limit the power any one person can donate to a candidate” (para 2 Adams indictment). Because New York City has a program that matches small donor contributions with up to eight times their amount in public funds, Adams then illegally received more than $10M in public monies, according to the indictment.

Turkey’s largesse continued after Adams won election by paying for upscale travel and hotel accommodations while the mayor created false paper trails to conceal the outright or heavily discounted gifts “falsely suggesting he had paid or planned to pay for travel benefits that were actually free” (para 5).

As Adams sought a way to reimburse Turkey's generosity, Adams pressured the NYC fire department to forgo inspections of Turkey’s new consulate building, a 36-story skyscraper, at Turkey’s urging in time for a visit from that country’s president. “Adams did as requested” (para 6) and the skyscraper opened without a pre-opening fire inspection. Adams had done what he was told while endangering New Yorkers who worked at the site.

Given the strength of the case against Adams that was filed in September 2024, the mayor became a persona non grata in the Democratic Party. When Joe Biden lost to Trump in November, Adams turned to the new president-elect, Donald Trump, himself not unaccustomed to finding ways to skirt legal accountability.

Mar-a-Lago pilgrimage
The friendly photo op between Adams and Donald Trump on January 17 at Mar-a-Lago suggests whatever the NY mayor was asking for was met by a friendly audience. Less than a month later, Trump’s DOJ told SDNY to drop all present and future criminal counts against Adams, even in light of new expected charges on obstruction of justice against Adams were forthcoming within days.

When SDNY’s chief prosecutor balked, Main Justice in the person of Bove brought down the hammer. Bove’s argument, outlined in a harshly worded letter to Sassoon—unusually threatening in its tone and substance—focused on three reasons for dismissal that Sassoon in response would prove laughable on their face.

Bove said: 1) that the charges against Adams were the result of the “weaponization” of the justice system under President Joe Biden, 2) that the SDNY office was prejudiced against Adams and sought to bring him down before the 2025 mayoral election for that reason, and 3) and that the prosecution unfairly burdened Mayor Adams by offering an unfair distraction from his other important duties, especially, carrying out the all-important presidential mandate of pursuing undocumented aliens. This argument was meant to demolish the “quid pro quo” idea—that Adams and Trump entered into an agreement that benefits both of them at the expense of the
public good.

Responding to those arguments in an eight-page letter to new Attorney General Pamela Bondi, Sassoon both asked for a personal meeting with Bondi to explain her reasoning—a request to go in front of DOJ leaders often granted to an agency head in a high-profile situation. (This was never granted.) Additionally, as background Sassoon addressed each of Bove’s points covered below.

I. The Adams charges were the result of the the DOJ’s weaponization under Biden Sassoon argues Bove’s argument is undercut by his previous statements in a Jan. 31, 2025 meeting and subsequent memos that raised no concerns over the integrity of the line prosecutors who investigated and charged the case or the merits of the case itself.
Thus, Sassoon suggests that Bove’s objections have been manufactured after President Trump’s decision to dismiss the charges, not beforehand.

Additionally, Sassoon rejects Bove’s contention that the previous SDNY head, a litigator with Democratic connections, had it in for Adams, leading to the indictments. Sassoon provides evidence that Damian Williams, who resigned shortly before Trump took the oath of office, had little to do with the investigation.

Sassoon asserted Williams was neither in charge of the already-begun investigation by career SDNY prosecutors, nor did he interfere with it. “He did not manage the day-to-day investigation and the charges in the case were recommended and approved by four experienced career prosecutors, the chiefs of the SDNY Public Corruption Unit and career prosecutors of the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department.”

Sassoon continued to say that even Adams himself has not charged an unfair prosecution that Bove asserts. That he has not filed a vindictive or selective prosecution motion offers further evidence that even the accused, Adams, does not believe he was targeted for prosecution without basis (information taken from Sassoon’s letter to Pamela Bondi dated Feb. 12, 2015)

II. That the SDNY office was prejudiced against Adams and sought to bring him down before the 2025 mayoral election for that reason
According to Sassoon, the decision to file charges in September 2024—nine months before the mayoral primary and 14 months before the mayoral election — “complied in every respect with election year sensitivities and the applicable Justice Manual provisions” (p 4 Sassoon letter to Bondi).

In keeping with the Justice Manual involving the timing of charges against public officials, SDNY consulted with the Office of the Deputy Attorney General or Attorney General as required, and also received concurrence with the DOJ's Public Integrity Section. Bottom line: “The Justice Department correctly concluded that bringing charges nine months before the primary election was entirely appropriate” (p 4 Sassoon letter to Boondi)Given that no red flags were raised until after President Trump decided to dismiss Adams’ charges, reasonable people may infer that Bove’s rationale was concocted after the fact to justify dismissal.

III. That the prosecution unfairly burdened Mayor Adams by offering an unfair distraction from his other important duties. And, by inference, no “quid pro quo”
Taking a page, perhaps, from the Justice Department’s manual preventing presidents from facing charges while in office, the above statement seems to apply the same reasoning to an office holder who enjoys no such legal protection, like a city mayor.

More importantly, Bove employs an argument, “too busy to face charges,” which if used in deciding all prosecutions or in defending them could assume that no one should be charged. Savvy defense attorneys from now on could argue that charges should always be dismissed, as time spent preparing for their defense would also hamper their client’s ability to hold down a job.

In Sassoon’s letter to Bondi, the then-SDNY chief politely argued Bove’s distractions argument “does not bear scrutiny.” That Adams has suggested his work of supporting Trump’s mass-deportation plan trumps his being brought before the Bar of Justice “should be called out for what it is: an improper offer of immigration assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case” …and should be rejected “rather than being rewarded” (p 5 Sassoon letter to Bondi)...the award of dropping charges for immigration work amounting to a “quid pro quo.”

Quid Pro Quo…it’s right there in the room!
It’s at this section in her letter that Sassoon mentions the scene from Bove’s meeting in New York with Sassoon and her staff and, inexplicably, Adams’ counsel. In that meeting, Sassoon describes Adams’ attorneys as “urging what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.”

Sassoon continued: “Mr. Bove admonished a member of my team who took notes during the meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting’s conclusion.” In other words, Adams’ attorneys admitted the Mayor could offer a focused assistance on immigration only if the Government dropped its charges…the very essence of an illegal quid pro quo, which Bove has denied.

Epilogue
In Bove’s decision letter to Sassoon, Trump’s number two at Justice continued to maintain the fiction that, “This decision (to fire you) is based on your choice to continue pursuing a politically motivated prosecution.” Then he took the harshest line of all to enforce adherence to that story—threats to fire and then investigate for prosecution any SDNY prosecutor who participated in the case, and Sassoon herself (p 1 Bove Feb. 13 letter to Danielle Sassoon).

Bove to Sassoon: “You indicated that the prosecution team is aware of your communications with the Justice Department, is supportive of your approach, and is unwilling to comply with the order to dismiss the case. Accordingly, the AUSAAs (Assistant United States Attorneys) principally responsible for this case are being placed on off-duty, administrative leave (until further notice) pending investigations by the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of Professional Responsibility, both of which will also evaluate your professional conduct (my ital)” (p 1 Bove Feb. 13 Bove letter to Sassoon).

Bove went on to say that if either of the AUSAs who worked on the case now wish to fall in line with the DOJ and Bove, they can keep their jobs. Since then, one of them, Hagan Scotten, has also resigned.

However, in the strongman tradition that now apparently reigns at the top levels of the Department since Jan. 20, overreaching can also bring its embarrassments.

Bove, continuing in the letter: “Under your leadership, the office has demonstrated itself to be incapable of fairly and impartially reviewing the circumstances of this prosecution. Therefore, the prosecution of Mayor Adams is transferred to the Justice Department, which will file a motion to dismiss the charges pursuant to Rule 48 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. My prior direction regarding no further targeting of Mayor Adams or additional investigative steps related to this matter remains in place” (p 2 Bove letter to Sassoon).

But what actually happened…
…. did not exactly comport with Bove’s insult-threaded assurances. While Bove made good on his word to transfer the Adams case to the DOJ in Washington—specifically, to the Public Integrity section—five DOJ attorneys in that unit resigned rather than obey what they considered “an ill-advised and even unlawful directive” (Feb. 14, npr.org).

Eventually, Bove was able to get his order of dismissal signed by, not only himself, but several other DOJ officials, apparently by using the kind of intimidation that has become his calling card.

According to the New York Times: “By Friday afternoon, a veteran prosecutor, Edward Sullivan, agreed to submit the request in Manhattan federal court to shield his colleagues from being fired or resigning en masse, according to three people briefed on the interaction, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution” (Feb. 14 nytimes.com).

A few days later, Hagan Scott, the author of the contraband notes from the Jan. 31 meeting called by Bove, resigned his SDNY post. In his resignation letter, Scott, also a Republican by affiliation, said that no United States prosecutor could in good conscience be asked to “use their prosecutorial powers” to influence anyone, “much less elected officials.”

Scott added:
“If no lawyer within the 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.”

The dismissal case now goes before U.S. District Judge Dale Ho who must sign off on
the request—or investigate it merits further.

The notes, as prologue
Scott’s resignation thus adds to a total of 7 principled, experienced DOJ prosecutors who through their resignations have been lost to the Department of Justice over the dismissal of Adams' case.

To this retired English teacher, taking notes is not only a footnote in Sassoon’s letter to Attorney General Bondi, but also a metaphor. The notes were taken to record facts and other truths, which are apparently no longer allowed to surface or circulate freely in Trump’s Department of Justice. At Bove’s insistence, the SDNY’s notes must be destroyed or kept in darkness. So must the truth they contained.

–trg

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