FIRST THE COUP. NOW THE CORRUPTION
©Wendell Griffen, 2025
Danielle Sassoon, the interim United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, resigned her position yesterday in protest over the decision by the U.S. Department of Justice to dismiss a federal indictment against New York Mayor Eric Adams, without prejudice, on the condition that Adams would order New York City to cooperate with Trump administration immigration policies. Several other career federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York also resigned, along with prosecutors in the Justice Department’s public integrity division in Washington, D.C.
I encourage you to read Sassoon’s eight-page letter to U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, and the reply by Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove. Then read Heather Cox Richardson’s February 13 column. I am pasting a link to it for your convenience.
Here is why Sassoon’s resignation and its aftermath matters. The most formidable power exercised by any government is the power to threaten life and liberty. That is why every federal prosecutor must swear to faithfully fulfill her duties to uphold the law, without fear or favor.
That is why every federal prosecutor is ethically bound to pursue criminal charges only after an honest (good faith) and thorough investigation of the relevant facts and law.
And that is why every member of the U.S. armed forces must swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Not a political party.
Not a political ideology.
Not a political office holder.
Danielle Sassoon’s resignation is a signal that the federal agency responsible for impartial investigation and prosecution of people who are suspected of committing crimes is no longer committed to impartial investigations and prosecutions. This undermines trust in the fair administration of justice.
Donald Trump wants a corrupt legal system, needs a corrupt legal system, and appears to finally have the power to corrupt the U.S. legal system so that it becomes a bigger and more lethal form of the corrupt family real estate firm that he led before he became president the first time.
This will not make America great. It will merely make America more corrupt than ever.
And this means that none of us will be safe or free from violence, bigotry, deceit, contamination, and other evils because the United States government is now under the control of a vicious sociopath, Donald Trump, whose top political appointees are intentionally destroying the institutions that protect people from tyranny.
This is all so frightening and sickening.