Mayor Adams Case Fallout Tests DOJ Internal Misconduct Office

The standoff between the Trump administration and Manhattan prosecutors over the New York mayor’s criminal case is sparking a crisis inside an internal Justice Department investigatory unit that’s long caused anxiety for career attorneys.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove’s memo Thursday to resigning interim US Attorney Danielle Sassoon referred Manhattan’s now former chief prosecutor and two line attorneys to DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility for refusing to dismiss Eric Adams’ bribery charges. What happens next is bound to become the first of multiple tests of OPR’s half century of independence in reviewing prosecutors’ behavior, former department lawyers said.

Opening a non-intensive inquiry into their handling of the case would be a routine step for the office’s lawyers to take in this matter, especially since it was directed by the department’s No. 2 official.

But the real concern for a team unaccustomed to political pressure is what would happen if it faces unprecedented push back should interviews and a review of documents lead to a conclusion that no misconduct occurred, multiple lawyers said.

“The fear is that now that the Department of Justice becomes weaponized, that OPR becomes weaponized against the prosecutors,” said Joyce Vance, a former US Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.

OPR is composed of about 20 career lawyers who routinely open inquiries into DOJ lawyers whenever there’s any suggestion of ethical impropriety by a judge, supervisors, or opposing counsel.

OPR’s investigations, which can take years and may lead to bar license reviews or suspensions, frequently clear attorneys of wrongdoing. Still, OPR probes loom over prosecutors as an unavoidable possibility.

Now that Bove has ordered the office to probe Sassoon and the two principal prosecutors in Adams’ case—one of whom has also since resigned—its ability to conduct apolitical investigations into DOJ lawyers will face a critical test.

“Sassoon appears to have behaved entirely properly and honorably under the circumstances,” said John Sciortino, a former OPR attorney. “From what I can tell from the public record, there is nothing for OPR to investigate.”

Asked how OPR’s career leader Jeffrey Ragsdale, a former homicide chief at the US attorney’s office in Washington, would respond if DOJ leaders demanded different findings, Sciortino and others said they couldn’t think of a comparable scenario in history.

“The people who are running OPR, Jeff Ragsdale and Suzanne Drouet, have too much integrity for that to happen,” Sciortino added. “They are rock solid career and smart experienced people. If pressure was exerted on OPR to put their thumb on investigations one way or another then that would be a problem.”

Former DOJ lawyers, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to provide candid views, said they now worry about what once seemed inconceivable: that an attorney general would remove Ragsdale and replace him with a Trump loyalist or someone inexperienced.

OPR is filled with veteran DOJ lawyers who frequently come to the office as a final career stop that’s less tied to court deadlines. Many would retire rather than take orders to investigate Trump’s perceived enemies, several of their former colleagues said.

Another troubling factor, lawyers said, is that the Trump administration recently reassigned the department’s most senior career official, Bradley Weinsheimer, who’d previously served as OPR’s point of contact in leadership. It’s not known who will replace Weinsheimer in a deputy attorney general’s office role that until now had helped wall off OPR from political influence.