A judge responded for the first time since the federal government asked for the case against the New York City mayor to be dismissed.
Officials with the Trump administration and lawyers for New York City Mayor Eric Adams must appear in court as they seek dismissal of criminal charges against the Democrat, a federal judge ordered on Feb. 18.
U.S. District Judge Dale Ho ordered the parties to appear before him at the federal courthouse in the borough of Manhattan at 2 p.m. on Feb. 19.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and a lawyer for Adams did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.
DOJ officials asked Ho on Feb. 14 to dismiss the charges against Adams, which include accepting illegal campaign contributions. They said they were moving for dismissal because of appearances of impropriety, risks of interference with the 2025 mayoral election, and Adams’s duties as mayor.
“The Acting Deputy Attorney General reached that conclusion after learning, among other things, that as a result of these proceedings, Adams has been denied access to sensitive information that the Acting Deputy Attorney General believes is necessary for Adams to govern and to help protect the City,” the motion reads.
The document said that, through counsel, Adams consented to the motion.
Ho said in the new order that he had not been provided with the document memorializing Adams’s consent. He ordered Adams to file the document by 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
Ho also went over the federal rule that allows the government to dismiss charges, but only “with leave of court.” He outlined various decisions that explain that phrase, including a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruling that said the rule “was intended as a power to check power.”
“The Executive remains the absolute judge of whether a prosecution should be initiated and the first and presumptively the best judge of whether a pending prosecution should be terminated. The exercise of its discretion with respect to the termination of pending prosecutions should not be judicially disturbed unless clearly contrary to manifest public interest,” the appeals court said in the ruling.
