After I read Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon’s resignation letter, I came to the conclusion that the decision by the fascist regime to drop the charges against Mayor Eric Adams is the most brazenly corrupt decision I’ve ever seen an American administration make. It’s not the worst decision. That honor would have to go something like escalating the war in Vietnam or responding to 9/11 by invading Iraq or deciding to do nothing about climate change. But it is the most corrupt because it is blackmail.

The idea is simple. The Department of Justice has developed a very strong case against Mayor Adams for “bribery, campaign finance, and conspiracy offenses,” and it’s likely they could win a conviction. Adams knows this. So, the administration went to him with a very transparent offer. They would drop the charges against him if he assists them in rounding up undocumented New Yorkers.

The request isn’t the problem. There’s nothing wrong with asking mayors to cooperate with administration policies. The problem is that a grand jury indicted Adams and he should be prosecuted. Unless he wants to plead guilty, he shouldn’t have an alternative to facing a trial.

But worse than this, the idea is to dismiss the case against Adams “without prejudice,” which means that the federal government can still bring back the charges at any time if they feel Adams isn’t keeping up his end of the bargain. So, this places an elected official in a bind where the Justice Department is being used as a sword of Damocles to control his behavior.

Sassoon, who refused to carry out the order, did an excellent job of explaining why this is a very improper way of using the nation’s law enforcement agency, and I hope it’s just intuitively obvious that this kind of practice is inconsistent with the principles of fair and equal justice. Following Sassoon, there was a wave of prosecutors who resigned rather than participate in the travesty. Nonetheless, the regime found two prosecutors who were willing to their bidding, if only to save the jobs of a score of others who refused.

It will be very interesting to see what happens. There are examples from history where a judge has refused to accept a prosecutor’s request to drop charges that have been brought by a grand jury, but it’s incredibly rare. A good example is a prosecutor who has taken a bribe from the accused. But, in this case, the corrupt act is coming from the Oval Office. It’s one thing to replace a corrupt prosecutor with an honest one, but quite another to force a president to carry out a trial he doesn’t want to see prosecuted.  Some experts say the judge “has limited if any discretion to question or reject the Justice Department’s request,” but he may call a hearing to further explore the matter.

If the judge in the case determines that the interests of the public demand that Adams face charges, who exactly will serve on the prosecution team, and how can they be compelled to produce their strongest case? Would the Supreme Court even back up the judge’s determination?

Once you begin to think about all the complications involved here, it’s easy to see why it is so damaging.

But if you understand fascism, you’ll might see a larger goal at work. It’s not worth much to the regime to have Adams remain in office for a few more months. Maybe the whole point was to actually provoke mass resignations from prosecutors in the Justice Department.  And, for the record, it’s not just me suggesting this. The following is from Ross Douthat.

The Trump Department of Justice is picking a fight with its own lawyers, not for some longstanding desire of the president’s heart nor over some important point of constitutional interpretation, but to keep an official of the rival party, with no obvious political future, in office for a very short amount of time. And to the extent that there appears to be any quid pro quo at work, as the Manhattan Institute’s Charles Fain Lehman points out, all the Trump administration is getting from Adams is a promise to enforce existing immigration law — which given his myriad difficulties and limited tenure, is probably not worth very much.

The assumption inside the Trump administration, one supposes, is that it’s better to cull the potentially disloyal lawyers early, or to get them to prove their allegiance upfront, so that you won’t have to worry about dramatic resignations when you come to some much more important battle. Adams isn’t important in his own right; he’s just a useful test of obedience and discipline.

Another explanation, and a plausible one, is that the fascists just aren’t that deep. They act impulsively and adjust to the negative consequences of their actions, usually by finding new weaknesses to exploit. Either way, these things will continue until the fascist regime is defeated.