When Danielle Sassoon’s college newspaper asked her two decades ago for three words she would use to describe herself, the first word the future lawyer said was “independent.” On Thursday, Sassoon demonstrated that independence when she resigned as Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor rather than comply with an order from President Donald Trump’s Justice Department to drop charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who forged ties with the Republican president. Sassoon, who clerked for the late conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and is a member of the right-leaning Federalist Society, wrote in a strongly worded letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi that seeking to dismiss the Adams case would violate her duty to uphold the rule of law.
