Crisis? What Crisis?

Over the weekend, a friend messaged me to say: “It’s honestly so cool we’re having a constitutional crisis over Eric Adams.” (“He really is a man of destiny,” the friend added, like Alexander the Great.) Earlier last week, President Trump’s Justice Department had ordered prosecutors in New York to drop corruption charges against Adams, the city’s mayor; in response, Danielle Sassoon, an acting US attorney, resigned, and was followed out the door by six other officials. At particular issue was the apparently overt political nature of the DOJ order, which made no judgment as to the merits of the charges but did suggest they were interfering with Adams’s reelection bid and cooperation with the new administration on immigration enforcement; what’s more, the order left room for the charges to be revived, sparking concerns that the administration would have the leverage to essentially control Adams going forward. “Our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way,” the lead prosecutor in the case wrote in a blistering resignation letter. “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.” (In the end, an official did indeed sign off, sending the order to a judge for review.)