Statement on Danielle Sassoon Resignation

A statement from the board of directors of the Society for the Rule of Law Institute:

The contempt with which the new administration treats the rule of law, to say nothing of America’s longstanding legal norms, is as breathtaking as it was predictable. Its move to dismiss the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams is the latest demonstration—though surely not the last—of both naked corruption and a brazen willingness to politicize justice.

Danielle Sassoon, the former interim United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has demonstrated what moral leadership looks like in the face of this ongoing crisis of the rule of law. So have her colleagues Kevin Driscoll, acting Head of the Criminal Division, John D. Keller, acting Chief of the Public Integrity Section, and others.

Their decision to resign their posts, rather than accede to the administration’s unethical, corrupt, and lawless demands, is the kind of courage that has been sorely missing from the conservative legal movement in recent years. Sassoon is a Federalist Society member and former clerk to Justice Scalia. Her actions are a testament to her character, and a blemish against all those in the movement who have chosen to stay silent.

In her resignation letter, Sassoon wrote: “I understand my duty as a prosecutor to mean enforcing the law impartially, and that includes prosecuting a validly returned indictment regardless whether its dismissal would be politically advantageous, to the defendant or to those who appointed me […] It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Please contact Tony Franquiz at [email protected] to be connected with spokespeople for comment.