DOJ’s Adams Order Cues Showdown With Wall Street Prosecutors

The Trump Justice Department’s order that Manhattan federal prosecutors drop the corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams sets up an early showdown over the independence of the government lawyers who police Wall Street.

Along with white-collar crime, the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York has long pursued public corruption cases against both Republicans and Democrats. Most recently, it won a bribery conviction against former US Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who was sentenced last month to 11 years in prison.

Eric Adams

Photographer: Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg

But in his Monday directive, Acting US Deputy Attorney General ...