What did Donald Trump do today?

He forced the resignation of six federal prosecutors over his attempt to strike a corrupt bargain with indicted NYC Mayor Eric Adams.

Eric Adams, a Democrat and mayor of New York City, had been under investigation by the Biden administration for bribery. This culminated in federal grand jury indictments in September. Publicly reported details were lurid, with Adams's staffers joking with Turkish officials about how best to conceal the bribery by charging token amounts for airline tickets costing $15,000, or how Adams's name could be kept off of luxury hotel reservations.

After the election, Adams began publicly courting Trump for a pardon. He ordered staff not to publicly criticize Trump, and to cooperate with ICE raids even when they interfered with city business. 

Earlier this week, in a virtually unprecedented departure from normal practice, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered prosecutors in the Southern District of New York to dismiss the charges against Adams. The reason given was that the Adams was the victim of political persecution by the (Democratic) Biden administration, and that he is a candidate for office. (Trump insisted during the 2024 campaign that it was improper for him to have to be put on trial for the same reasons.) Bove's order also forbade federal prosecutors from conducting any investigation into Adams going forward—in essence, declaring him off-limits for any federal law enforcement.

Bove's order also claimed that prosecuting Adams would prevent him from implementing Trump's immigration agenda at the local level—which, the New York Times is now reporting, is an argument that Bove's team coached Adams's lawyers to make.

Bove was one of Donald Trump's criminal defense lawyers in the New York trial last year that saw Trump convicted of 34 felonies. Alex Spiro, who represents Adams, is also Trump patron Elon Musk's lawyer.

In a letter dated yesterday, Acting United States Attorney Danielle Sassoon refused to drop the charges, and offered to resign if Bove was unwilling to retract the order. Bove fired her today and threatened to investigate her instead. (Sassoon was made AUSA only days ago and was not part of the Adams investigaiton.)

Sassoon is a Trump appointee, a member of the conservative Federalist Society, and a former clerk for arch-conservative former Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. Like other people in acting roles, she was hand-picked by the Trump transition team precisely because of her political loyalties.

Five other prosecutors involved in the Adams case announced their resignations in quick succession today. 

Sassoon's letter says in unambiguous language that she witnessed an explicit quid pro quo between Bove and Adams's defense team, in which Adams would support Trump's immigration policies in exchange for the dismissal of charges. She also notes that Bove yelled at a DOJ lawyer who was taking notes on the procedure.

According to NBC News, a seventh official was prepared to resign, but had not made it official as they were currently giving birth.

One of the precipitating events of Richard Nixon's resignation was the so-called "Saturday Night Massacre," in which his attorney general and deputy attorney general resigned rather than follow Nixon's illegal order to fire the special prosecutor investigating him. The reaction to this purge was so negative that Robert Bork, the official who did eventually carry out Nixon's order, failed to win Senate confirmation when he was nominated for a Supreme Court seat in part because he lost Republican votes due to his involvement.

Why does this matter?

• There's corruption, and then there's corruption so obvious that even hand-picked loyalists will destroy their careers rather than participate in.

• Politicians who commit crimes should be prosecuted for those crimes, not blackmailed into using their office to do what prosecutors want.