Who is Danielle Sassoon, the acting US attorney in New York who stood up to Trump's DOJ over Eric Adams corruption case?

Danielle Sassoon, Manhattan's chief federal prosecutor, was in charge of all federal crime investigations in the Southern District of New York, including the corruption prosecution against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, which the Trump administration has ordered abandoned.

Danielle Sassoon exits court in New York on October 5, 2023.

Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Sassoon, the district's acting US attorney, wrote in her resignation letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi that the New York mayor's lawyers "repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo" to assist Trump with immigration if the matter was dismissed.

"I remain baffled by the rushed and superficial process by which this decision was reached, in seeming collaboration with Adams's counsel and without my direct input on the ultimate stated rationales for dismissal," the lawyer wrote.

The Justice Department charged Adams, a Democrat, with public corruption last year, making him the first sitting mayor to face prosecution in the city's modern history. He pled not guilty, and the matter was scheduled to go to trial this spring.

Here is what we know about Sassoon.

Rising through the ranks of the Justice Department

After graduating from Harvard College, Sassoon went to Yale Law School and graduated in 2011. She then clerked for federal appellate Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III and conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016.

She was a litigation lawyer at a Washington law firm and an adjunct professor at New York University law school, where she taught a Supreme Court course, according to The Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization to which she contributes.

According to her Justice Department profile, she was assigned to the violent and organized crime unit and is responsible for trying murder and racketeering cases. Sassoon also worked on the securities and commodities fraud task team and was the co-chief of criminal appeals.

Sassoon became acting US attorney last month.

Other top-profile cases

Sassoon has been involved in several high-profile lawsuits in recent years.

Sassoon prosecuted Lawrence Ray, who had stayed in his daughter's Sarah Lawrence College dorm room, and he was eventually convicted of sex trafficking, forced labor, tax evasion, and money laundering after less than a day of jury deliberation. He was condemned to sixty years in jail.

She also conducted the government's cross-examination of Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted of scamming clients and investors in his failing cryptocurrency exchange FTX and sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2023.