Hey, everyone. I'm David Chalian, CNN's Washington Bureau Chief and Political Director, and welcome to the CNN Political Briefing. The Justice Department has been very busy in recent days. DOJ attorneys have been tasked with defending President Trump's agenda as his attempts to radically reshape the government run into numerous legal challenges. And, amid all that, turmoil hit the Justice Department last week when the acting deputy attorney general directed prosecutors to dismiss the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. That directive cited how the case was restricting Adams's ability to help with Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. The move sparked a flurry of resignations at the DOJ and an accusation of a quid pro quo. Elie Honig is a former federal and state prosecutor and a senior legal analyst here at CNN. He's been helping us follow this story and other moves by the Justice Department under President Trump. He joins me now to discuss this shakeup at the DOJ and what the bigger implications of the Adams case could be. And we take a larger look at the legal landscape under Trump 2.0 and discuss why he thinks our country's legal history is at a, quote, pivotal moment. Elie, thanks so much for being here.

Glad to be with you, David.

So take me inside the courtroom in what was a pretty extraordinary hearing. Just to set this up, you have a federal judge who is going to decide whether or not the prosecutors can continue with their plan to drop their case against the mayor of the largest city in the country, because, by doing so, he could help Donald Trump's immigration plans. Do I have that right?

You do. And it's a lot. And you hit on — the very end of the way you phrased it, the very end of that sentence, is why this is such a big deal. And I think it's really important to understand the reason there's been so much focus on this case is because it's about so much more than Eric Adams. Look, there have been big indictments of mayors and governors and senators before. They come and go. If Eric Adams got convicted or not, prison or not, life would go on. Institutions would survive. What makes this one so different, and this is where I think we're in untread territory, first time in American history is the person who is acting as the number two official in all of the Justice Department, the acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove — I should say, he's a former colleague of mine — he went into court and said the official position of the United States Justice Department is we want to dismiss this case not because of anything to do with the quality of the evidence, not because of any legal theory that might be flawed here, but because we believe this defendant, happens to be the mayor, can help us carry out our political and policy agenda of immigration enforcement.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I love getting to talk to a former federal prosecutor here. Prosecutors don't bring charges unless they have a significant belief that they're going to be successful at getting a conviction in trials. True?

Absolutely true.

So not only is he not saying that this should not be dismissed because of the quality of evidence or anything like that; he's not arguing to dismiss it for that. That means he, representing the Department of Justice, actually believes this is still a very valid case that would likely result in conviction.

Well, he's undercut that a little bit. If we look at the whole exchange of letters that's gone down over the last several weeks. And by the way, like, as a member of the media now, please, DOJ continue to air your dirty laundry so we can all see it. But it does offer some insight, and Bove does in one of his, in his second letter, after he gets the resignations, he sort of throws in there, by the way, I think there's problems with this case, too. It looked, for a second, like DOJ might actually change and say, well, no, no, that's the reason, judge, because we think there's a problem with the case. The chief of staff to the attorney general tweeted before the case, X'd before the case, oh, there might be problems with the legal theory here. And I was wondering, is Bove now going to go into court and say, actually, it's not because of the politics and the policy stuff. It's because we think there's problems with the case. But he did not. He said, nope, not here because of the quality of the case, here because of the policy stuff. And you raise a very important point, David. Prosecutors would not bring a case like this by the book unless they believed they could prove it to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. And I promise you an indictment of the mayor of New York City would have gone all the way up the line. And, by the way, fun fact, just a little flavor here, Emil Bove was at the Southern District of New York, the very same office that he essentially strongarmed into, well, he eventually took the case away from them. That's where he used to work.

Not at the time that this case was charged.

Right. Years ago.

In between he's been a personal attorney to the president.

Exactly. He was at the SDNY. Then he was Donald Trump's criminal attorney, and now he's a boss at DOJ.

Can you also explain to our listeners, can a judge force prosecutors to prosecute a case that they say they don't want to prosecute?

Yes, but with a very big asterisk. Only very, very rarely has that ever happened. So the federal rules — if anyone wants to look it up, Rule 48 — say that prosecutors can move to dismiss a case, but they need what we call leave of court, meaning permission of the judge. Now, it does happen. Prosecutors seek dismissal of their own cases, but it's always because sometimes the defendant dies; obviously, you have to end the case. Sometimes you discover a problem with your proof. Maybe you get a new witness who says, no, it actually wasn't that person. Maybe you've discovered some misconduct by the prosecutor. Maybe the prosecutor failed to turn over certain documents that he or she was required to turn over. But the judge then has to sign off. Now, 99.9% of the time it's a rubber stamp because, of course, the defendant's going to say, yeah, we agree, we want it dismissed. Prosecutors are going to say we want to dismiss it, and the judge just usually says, granted. In her resignation letter, Danielle Sassoon, who was very briefly for three weeks the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. I should say, was put in that position by Donald Trump on the recommendation of Emil Bove, by the way. I know that. I mean, I think other people have said it publicly, but I happen to know that, as well.

And her credentials are conservative. I mean, she's a member of the Federalist Society. She clerked for Scalia, did she?

Yes, and I should also note, two weeks ago, before this all broke out, Danielle Sassoon wrote this op ed for The Wall Street Journal where she was just blasting Joe Biden's pardons, which was like several weeks late. And I took it as, oh, she's auditioning here. She's trying to play for a role. But she said in response to Bove's instruction to dump the Eric Adams case, she said, no can do. This violates what DOJ is about, and Hagan Scotten, another conservative attorney at the SDNY who was running this case, essentially said the same thing. But in her....

I mean, seven people, seven colleagues of hers followed her out the door, right?

Yes — all experienced, nonpolitical people. In her letter, Danielle Sassoon says, you know, the judge — I don't believe the judge will accept this. And she cites one case where a judge refused to accept a dismissal. Maybe it undercuts her argument because she found one case from 1977 where that happened. So it's very uncommon. But a judge does have the theoretical power. But here's the problem. What if the judge said — we don't know what the judge is going to do as we sit here now; we'll talk about that maybe. But it sounds like the judge is probably going to grant the motion to dismiss. But what if the judge, Judge Ho, said no, I deny your motion to dismiss. Case continues. What's DOJ going to do then? They're going to ghost it. They're going to send nobody to court. They'll go, alright, judge. Have fun at trial with the nobody standing at the prosecutor's table. So, ultimately, DOJ holds the power here.

And we should note, I think, Judge Ho is a Biden appointee.

2023, yeah.

And pretty liberal credentials, comes from the ACLU. I mean...

NAACP, Legal Defense Fund, yep.

What I want to get from you, your takeaway of the hearing, because, as you noted, you said Bove was there, the acting deputy attorney general, the acting number two to Pam Bondi in the U.S. Department of Justice. Eric Adams was in that courtroom, as well, as the defendant in this case. I think the judge even asked, like, about their agreement to this moment. What were the dynamics in that room to have all those players right there?

So one key dynamic is the dissenters were not there, right? Because the two parties sitting at the table, you have Eric Adams and his lawyers. God knows they want a dismissal. You have only Emil Bove. He is the one who was the driver of all this.

Nobody's arguing for the case, for the charges.

Exactly. Danielle Sassoon and all them, they're gone. They don't have a seat at the table. There were some outside lawyers who tried to put in what we call amicus briefs, friends of the court briefs, arguing that the judge should deny this, but the judge sort of gave it the back of the hand. He said, I'm not really interested in your theoretical views here, but there was this moment where the judge had Eric Adams take the stand and testify, meaning he's under oath now. And the judge seemed to be, rightly, I think, concerned with this feature of what DOJ wants to do. When you dismiss a case, it can either be with prejudice, meaning it's dead for all time and can never come back or without prejudice, meaning it can come back. The plan here is to dismiss without prejudice, meaning it can come back. And the judge basically asked Eric Adams, you understand what that means? You understand...

That there's a sort of Damocles hanging over his head.

'Exactly. Exactly. And Adams said something sort of very Eric Adams-y, like, oh, I'm not going to do anything wrong. So, I'm not worried about it. But, you know, that has also given rise to some concern because it's seen as an enforcement mechanism. I mean, we've all seen the clip on Fox News where Adams is there with Tom Homan, and Homan says something to the effect of, if he doesn't do what we said, I'll be up his butt. And then Homan references the agreement they have now. Adams is laughing. But that is consistent with what Emil Bove said the deal was.

What does this say about public integrity prosecutions, prosecutions of public officials, which is a huge component and an important public service that prosecutors, like when you did this kind of work, perform for the people? So what does that say about how we hold — and again, Eric Adams, if these charges were to go forward, deserves his day in court, I'm not suggesting he would be found guilty — but having gone through the process, having a grand jury indict, there is an accountability here on behalf of the voters and citizens. And what happens to that if you can just strike deals and curry favor with the president and move on?

'That is exactly the source of the concern here from DOJ, past and present career prosecutors. Imagine if this is the rule. Imagine if the rule now is, well, if you get indicted and you're a public official — it really only applies to public officials, which, by the way, is problematic in itself because, realistically, only public officials are ever going to be in position to help the president's agenda. So, already we're building at a potential benefit for one narrow class of people who, when they commit crimes, really do need to be prosecuted. But if the rule is if you get indicted, but you're in position to help us with some important political or policy initiative, you can get out of it. I mean, think about it this way. I wish the judge would have asked this question of Eric Adams or DOJ. What if Eric Adams had said to you, DOJ, I'm actually not on board with the president's immigration agenda. I actually believe New York should be a sanctuary city. Would you still be in here asking for dismissal of this case? The only plausible answer to that is, of course not. And you can play out the hypotheticals any way you want. Think of any major public official who's been indicted in recent memory, Rod Blagojevich, the governor of Illinois. Well, whether it's a Democratic administration or Republican administration, we have this initiative, anti-gun. Are you on board with it? Yes, I am. Very good. We'll dismiss. You know, any mayor, governor, police chief, senator. Senator Bob Menendez, he got indicted. What if, whether Biden or Trump would have called him up, and said, you know, Senator, you're under indictment right now, but you have a really important vote, and we have a bill that we care about coming up that's really important for public safety. Are you with us on that? Now, arguably, that's a little different. But the point is, if you are conditioning prosecutorial exercises of power on policy and politics, that is why you saw Danielle Sassoon and others resign. That would be the end of DOJ as we know it. I'm not saying DOJ is going to cease to exist, but it will be a fundamental change in the way DOJ does business.

We're going to take a quick break. We'll have a lot more with Elie Honig in just a moment.

'Elie, one last question on the Adams matter for you. We could do a whole different podcast on the politics and Kathy Hochul's involvement and what will come of Mayor Adams's political future here, but one one more question: To what we just talked about, the real potential crisis here and why Sassoon left and others. What is Bove's response to that, since you said they're not putting forth an argument that the case was flawed and yet they're denying actual quid pro quo? What is the response to that this really undermines this whole notion of public officials who may have done corrupt acts, who have now an off-ramp from being held accountable?

Bove's first response is, well, you're all fired now, right? I accept your resignation. And, by the way, we are now going to be investigating you, Danielle Sassoon, and others who worked on this case, not criminally, but within DOJ, which is a big deal. But, you know, it's interesting because Bove fired back a letter to Danielle Sassoon after she sent her resignation letter. And, in some respects, his response is internally contradictory because he says on the one hand, there is no quid pro quo, which is sort of strange. I mean, I used the example before, if Adams was not on board with the immigration agenda, he clearly would not have gotten this. He is on board, so he did get it. That's a pretty obvious...

Right, seems plain as day. Yeah.

Yeah. But then he also says, and, by the way, it's perfectly fine to do this. It's perfectly fine for the president to pull any lever of power up to and including DOJ in order to accomplish his policy goals. He uses the example of Viktor Bout, who was the arms smuggler who we traded, Joe Biden decided to trade in a hostage deal for Brittney Griner, and he says this is no different than that. I would argue that a president negotiating with international forces for a hostage exchange is very different than dismissing an indictment.

'Yeah, I think that's a fair argument. So now I want to turn to the larger legal landscape in Trump 2.0. We're only a few weeks in to this administration, but it is quite clear, given the rapid-fire nature, that Donald Trump is trying to enact an agenda through executive action. He is obviously going to pursue a legislative package. We're not quite there yet on Capitol Hill. So, so much of what these last few weeks have been about have been these executive orders and whether it is dismissing federal workers or getting rid of the inspectors general in some of these agencies, the special counsel's office. A lot of this stuff of the DOGE effort and the like, seems obviously it's already in courtrooms and seems quite destined to fill up the Supreme Court's calendar, as well. As you look at everything that you've seen filed already, that you've seen arguments of, how do you see the courts playing a role in this immediate moment of the first few weeks of the presidency?

'You know, I really think we are at a pivotal moment in our governmental history, our legal history right now, because what Donald Trump is trying to do, and I think he's going to get some traction in this, is to expand the powers of the presidency, maybe beyond anything we've seen, certainly in recent history. And, you know, it's also interesting, just from a media point of view real quick, we went from many years of covering Donald Trump being the target of various, from Mueller through Jack Smith to Fani Willis to Alvin Bragg to impeachments. All of that is over now. And now we're looking at his executive actions playing out in courts, and I think the stakes for the country are much higher. Now, Donald Trump issued more executive actions that would bring about more change than any president ever has in his first month in office. On day one, he issued 26 executive orders, an all-time record. And now we're seeing them go through the court. Now, the president clearly has, you know, some would argue, conservatives and Trump would argue, complete, unfettered power within the executive branch. But there are important limitations. First of all, the Constitution itself is a limitation. If Donald Trump announced within the executive branch, I'm going to fire all female employees, right? Well, yes, that's entirely within the executive branch. That would immediately be stopped by the courts because it's flagrantly unconstitutional. The bigger question...

You might put ending birthright citizenship into that category. It seems, thus far it seems that courts are saying that is flagrantly unconstitutional.

'Well, I will quote the Reagan-appointed judge, paraphrase the Reagan-appointed judge from Washington state who said Trump's effort to undo birthright citizenship is the most unconstitutional argument he's ever seen in 40-plus years on the bench. So that one, I think, that one may wind up in the Supreme Court, too, but I think that one is going to lose on Trump's effort. Now, where we get into a sort of interesting tension is how about if there's a tension between a law that's been passed by Congress and then something Donald Trump wants to do within the executive branch, for example, the firing of all the inspectors general. There's a law in Congress that basically says the president can fire IGs, but he has to give 30 days notice. He has to tell Congress and has to give a reason why. Well, Trump, as he has want to do, just said, how about I just fire the person, and then you can sue me. And so now the question that's going to play out in the courts is, well, can Congress pass a law that in some way limits the president's power purely within the executive branch? This has been a long time stalking horse of the conservative legal, scholarly world.

This is the unitary executive.

Unitary executive theory is having its day right now. And this has been a favorite theory of the Federalist Society and others, which basically is the president is not merely the head of the executive branch. He is the executive branch. And no one, not Congress, not bureaucrats, not regulations, can tell him what he can and cannot do within the executive branch. And that, I think, is the fundamental dispute that is making its way up through our courts right now.

'And raises questions about, well, what does it mean then that we have three co-equal branches?

Yeah. I mean, that would be a good question. I would ask, is there anything Congress can do that can limit the president's power, Mr. Solicitor General, who will be arguing these cases for Trump? Also a former Trump defense lawyer, John Sauer. Or is there any role for Congress at all here? That's more of a legal question, but it does help Trump's position when you have a current Congress that's not going to resist him in any respect at all.

Now, we have seen one case already make its way to the United States Supreme Court, which is dealing with an appointee inside the Office of Special Counsel.

Right. So when we say special counsel here, not Robert Mueller, not Jack Smith, not that special counsel, not the prosecutor type. This is an agency established by Congress in the executive branch that basically handles whistleblower complaints. And it's also important to note, this is an emergency motion right now because Donald Trump fired this person. This person argues that he was improperly fired. And Congress has passed a law protecting that person, not saying he cannot be fired, but he can only be fired for good cause, meaning the president has to say you've done a lousy job or you've committed some sort of misconduct. Trump, of course, again, just similar to with the inspectors general just said, how about you're just fired, and then you can sue me. So we're not, just to be a little technical here, we're not at the phase of full briefing and merits arguments. What the Supreme Court is deciding is, are we going to put this action on hold? So we may see a little bit of a procedural discussion about can we get involved that this sort of emergency injunction stage? But the key question for the Supreme Court, and I suspect they're going to break largely along conservative liberal lines is, well, what wins out? Again, is it that statute that says, that law passed by Congress that says this position can only be fired for good cause, or is that an unconstitutional encroachment by Congress into the president's authority as the chief executive?

'We will, obviously, as we always do, pay a lot of attention as these cases make their way to the highest court. But I don't think, while this one you may be right, maybe it will fall on these 6-3 lines. I'm not sure that every single test that Donald Trump puts before this court is going to meet with success simply because he has three appointees on the court.

'I totally agree with you. For example, I think he's going to lose birthright citizenship by more than well, 6-3 would be a win. But I think he's going to lose that 7-to-2 or something along those lines. Also, I do push back on the sort of casual assertion that it's a 6-3 court, they're always going to go for him. And people point to the immunity decision, which he won 6-3 and, you know...

Not insignificant!

'No, it's a big example, but there are a lot of examples of this court ruling against Donald Trump, ruling against his policy agendas. They ruled against him several times over on various other issues relating to his criminal cases. They ruled he could be subpoenaed. They allowed his sentencing to go forward. They allowed the special counsel report to be released. They have rejected several of his policy initiatives over the years. I don't think — I'm speculating a bit here — I don't think the justices of the Supreme Court are especially enamored with or feel any sort of indebtedness towards Donald Trump or any president. I think maybe Alito and Thomas seem to have some sort of personal affection or policy affection for him. But I don't just go into every argument assuming it's going to be 6-3 conservatives, Trump wins.

I agree. And I will say, given all the controversy that Trump has the ability to spin up in the media, through the halls of Congress, so much of what this administration actually accomplishes will likely be decided in the courts, which means I'll be talking to you a lot. Elie Honig, thanks so much for being here.

Thanks, David. Great to be with you.

Appreciate it.

That's it for this week's edition of the CNN Political Briefing. Remember, you can reach out to us with your questions about Trump's new administration. Our contact information is in the show notes. CNN Political Briefing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Emily Williams. Our senior producer is Felicia Patinkin. Dan Dzula is our Technical Director, and Steve Lickteig is the Executive Producer of CNN Audio. Support from Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, Jon Dianora, Leni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Katie Hinman. We'll be back with a new episode next Friday. Thanks so much for listening.