“This Is Some New and Very Dangerous Development.” Inside the Bloody Battle Over the DOJ’s Crown Jewel

Emil Bove, Hagan Scotten , and Danielle Sassoon were considered to be among the brightest stars at the Justice Department’s most prestigious office.

Sassoon and Scotten resigned, as did a number of prosecutors in Washington , ostensibly over the handling of a single case: that of New York mayor Eric Adams .

Their fight has ballooned into a fight over, among other things, the notion that Justice Department and its prosecutors should be independent from the president's will.

Eric Adams' bribery and corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams have been dropped.

Eric Bove , the interim chief of SDNY , ordered the case to be dropped.

Bove is now the acting # 2 at the U.S. Justice Department , and Hagan Scotten is the prosecutor at SDNY .

Scotten won two Bronze Stars in Iraq and served in the Special Forces .

Prosecutors aren’t supposed to be political. Scotten, like Bove , wasn’t necessarily trying to win popularity contests on the Manhattan legal circuit.

Scotten was a political conservative, he found mentors on both sides: He clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts , and he worked for Neal Katyal , President Obama ’s acting Solicitor General, before going to SDNY.

He used that drive for more than just racking up convictions.