Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon quit on Thursday alongside two Justice Department officials working in its public integrity section.

Sassoon wrote an eight-page letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, detailing her refusal to drop the case and how she was “baffled” by the decision to drop the charges in a way that was “in seeming collaboration with Adams’ counsel.”

At the end, she signaled that she would resign if the directive wasn’t changed or reconsidered.

Deputy acting Attorney General Emil Bove had directed her to drop the case entirely. Instead, Sassoon wrote the letter refusing to dismiss the case to Bondi and also suggested Manhattan prosecutors could file a superseding indictment of Adams alleging that he “destroyed and instructed others to destroy evidence.”

“We have proposed a superseding indictment that would add an obstruction conspiracy count based on evidence that Adams destroyed and instructed others to destroy evidence and provide false information to the FBI, and that would add further factual allegations regarding his participation in a fraudulent straw donor scheme,” she wrote.

Sassoon also believed that dismissing the case would reinforce allegations that the Justice Department is weaponized rather than proving the opposite. “Confidence in the Department would best be restored by means well beyond dismissal,” she added, before speaking about the superseding indictment.

She also said that Bove’s order to dismiss the case was “inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good-faith arguments before the courts.”

“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,” she said. “I therefore deem it necessary to the faithful discharge of my duties to raise the concerns expressed in this letter with you and to request an opportunity to meet to discuss them further.”

Bove accepted her resignation in his own letter, calling her prosecution “politically motivated” and that she had “lost sight of the oath” that she took when she started at the Justice Department. He added that Sassoon’s suggestion that she retains “discretion to interpret the Constitution in a manner inconsistent with the policies of a democratically elected President and a Senate-confirmed Attorney General” is false.

The acting deputy attorney general said that Adams’s prosecution will be transferred to the Justice Department, which will dismiss the charges.

Throughout the rest of his letter, Bove often scolds Sassoon, even saying her actions “endangered” New York City. He also noted that he felt she didn’t consider her predecessor, Damian Williams’s actions as politicizing and tainting her office.

“I take no pleasure in imposing these measures, initiating investigations, and requiring personnel from the Justice Department to come to your District to do work that your team should have done and was required to do,” he concluded.

“In this instance, however, that is what is necessary to continue the process of reconciliation and restoration of the Department of Justice’s core values, as the Attorney General explained on February 5, 2025,” Bove added.

Adams was scheduled to go on trial for the charges in the indictment, which included bribery and campaign finance violations, in April. He has denied wrongdoing in the case and suggested, like Bove, that the indictment was politically motivated.