Judge vacates upcoming Eric Adams corruption trial but appoints conservative attorney to argue against dropping the case

(CNN) — A federal judge has vacated the upcoming trial date for New York City Mayor Eric Adams, but declined to immediately dismiss the charges all together in a case that has roiled the Justice Department.

Judge Dale Ho, instead, is appointing conservative attorney Paul Clement to present arguments challenging the Justice Department’s decision to drop charges against Adams and as he explores what his options are and if a dismissal is in the public interest.

The DOJ move to end the case against Adams has prompted an exodus of prosecutors who disagreed with the decision. Eight federal prosecutors, including the interim US attorney for the Southern District of New York, have resigned in protest. Four deputy mayors have departed City Hall as well.

Adams, who consented in writing to the deal to drop the charges, has denied any quid pro quo with the Trump administration for dropping the charges of bribery, corruption, wire fraud and soliciting and accepting donations from foreign nationals in exchange for boosting President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.

The Justice Department was represented earlier this week by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, one of Trump’s former personal attorneys, after protests from DOJ prosecutors. Bove defended the motion to drop charges against Adams, stressing that the DOJ headquarters has prosecutorial discretion and a prosecution of Adams interferes with the Trump administration’s immigration initiatives in New York City. He also pushed back against claims of a quid pro quo between Adams and the Trump administration.

Bove added at one point, unprompted, “I want to be clear I think the only question is whether there’s any basis to believe that I made these representations to the court in bad faith, and the answer to that is absolutely not.”

In his ruling Friday, Ho said “it is clear” that the April 21 trial date will be canceled.

But his move to appoint Clement means the charges against Adams will not go away.

Clement, who served as solicitor general under former President George W. Bush, is one of the nation’s leading Supreme Court advocates.

Over the years, he’s helped push the law in the US further to the right through a range of cases he’s argued and won before the high court, including one last year in which the court’s conservative supermajority overturned a longstanding legal doctrine that gives federal agencies wide latitude to create policies and regulations in various areas of life and another one from several years ago that dramatically expanded Second Amendment rights.

“Normally, courts are aided in their decision-making through our system of adversarial testing, which can be particularly helpful in cases presenting unusual fact patterns or in cases of great public importance,” Ho wrote Friday.

“Here, the recent conference helped clarify the parties’ respective positions, but there has been no adversarial testing of the Government’s position generally or the form of its requested relief specifically,” he added, referring to this week’s hearing.

Briefs are due by March 7 and Ho says he’ll hold a hearing March 14, if necessary.

CNN’s Devan Cole contributed to this report.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Judge Dale Ho is the judge presiding over the case.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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