NEW YORK — The federal judge overseeing the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams ordered the mayor and federal prosecutors to appear in court on Wednesday to discuss the Trump administration’s effort to drop the case, a move that has sparked a crisis within the Justice Department and chaos within the Adams administration.

U.S. District Judge Dale Ho wrote in an order Tuesday that Adams, his lawyers and prosecutors should be prepared to discuss prosecutors’ rationale for seeking to dismiss the case, the reasons for Adams’ agreement to do so and the procedure for resolving the motion.

Ho’s order is the first indication that he may not quietly accept the Justice Department’s effort to torpedo the case, in which Adams is accused of bribery and other corruption charges. Some legal experts think the judge has limited power to resist the dismissal, but others believe he could refuse to allow the charges to be dropped. The advocacy group Common Cause has asked Ho to appoint a special prosecutor to take over the case.

The effort to drop the case initiated with a top Justice Department official, Emil Bove, who last week directed the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office to seek a dismissal of the charges against Adams, a Democrat.

Bove wrote in a memo to the office that the case has “improperly interfered” with the mayor’s reelection campaign and could hurt his ability to support Trump’s immigration agenda. Bove also wrote that the decision wasn’t based on the strength of the evidence or on the legal theories underpinning the case.

Bove’s order to abandon the case triggered a wave of resignations from lawyers in the U.S. attorney’s office and at the Justice Department in Washington. Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, alleged that Bove and Adams appeared to be engaged in an improper deal.

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In her resignation letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi last week, Sassoon recounted a Jan. 31 meeting with Adams’ lawyers in which she said “Adams’s attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.”

Sassoon argued that dismissing the case would amount to rewarding Adams for “an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case.”

One of the lead prosecutors in the Adams case, Hagan Scotten, echoed the allegation of impropriety in his own resignation letter.

Adams and his lawyers have repeatedly denied a quid pro quo, but in a letter dated Feb. 3, his lawyers wrote that “if Mayor Adams is removed from office, he would be replaced at least temporarily by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a frequent outspoken critic of Mayor Adams’s desire to protect New Yorkers by combating the migrant crisis.”

Ho’s response to the Justice Department’s effort was also predicted by Sassoon. In her resignation letter, Sassoon warned Bondi that dropping the case against Adams wouldn’t be straightforward because Ho would likely conduct a “searching inquiry” concerning the reasons for the dismissal. The result, she wrote, would be “detrimental to the Justice Department’s reputation, regardless of outcome.”

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POLITICO