Danielle Sassoon, the interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan, has resigned after the Justice Department ordered her to drop the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Sassoon was one of a few top officials to resign over the order on Thursday, which she did not carry out. Also stepping down are the heads of the Justice Department’s public integrity office, which was to handle Adams’ corruption charges after Sassoon resigned.
Sassoon, 38, who is Jewish, had a quick rise through the ranks of the prestigious Southern District of New York before this week. She is a graduate of the Ramaz School, an Orthodox prep school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, as well as of Harvard University, where she held a leadership position with Harvard Students for Israel, according to a profile in The New York Times. She then attended Yale Law School.
At the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, Sassoon was involved in a number of high-profile prosecutions, including those of crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried and Larry Ray, who ran a sex cult at Sarah Lawrence College. Both received lengthy prison sentences. Sassoon was serving as interim U.S. attorney pending the confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominee, Jay Clayton.
In her lengthy resignation letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, she outlined her objections and wrote that the evidence against Adams “proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed federal crimes.” She said that she could not “in good faith” request that the charges against Adams be dismissed.
She noted that the official who wants the charges dropped has not disputed the merits of the case. Dismissing the charges, she added, would be “inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good-faith arguments before the courts.”
Sassoon’s resignation is also the latest example of a conservative official clashing with the dictates of the Trump administration. She is a registered Republican and member of the conservative Federalist Society, and clerked for conservative judges early in her career, including Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. When he died in 2016, she wrote an affectionate remembrance calling him a “mentor and a mensch.”
“Both men instilled in me a sense of duty to contribute to the public good and uphold the rule of law, and a commitment to reasoned and thorough analysis,” she wrote in her resignation letter, referencing Scalia and another judge. “I have always considered it my obligation to pursue justice impartially, without favor to the wealthy or those who occupy important public office, or harsher treatment for the less powerful.”
Sassoon’s resignation has earned praise from another local Jewish official. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is running to unseat Adams in this year’s Democratic primary, tweeted on Thursday, “This is what integrity looks like. Danielle Sassoon is a hero for democracy.”
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