This week, the Department of Justice directed federal prosecutors to drop corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.

Adams was indicted in September on five counts, which include accepting bribes and illegal foreign campaign contributions in exchange for his influence as mayor.

Our White House correspondent Laura Barone Lopez has more. Laura.

Omna, that Justice Department order comes after Mayor Eric Adams curried favor with President Trump for months, including dining with him in Florida. Today, Adams addressed the move by the

Justice Department.

So let me be clear. I never ask anyone to break the law on my behalf or on behalf of my campaign.

Never. And I absolutely never traded my power as an elected official for any personal benefit.

Joining me now to discuss the implications of this order is Jessica Roth,

former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York and professor at the Cardozo

School of Law.

Jessica, thanks so much for joining.

To start, what's your reaction to this DOJ order?

This is a highly unusual situation, to put it mildly.

It is very unusual for the Deputy Attorney General to direct prosecutors in a U.S. Attorney's Office to drop a case that has already been indicted. And the memo that contains that direction says a number of things that are highly, highly disturbing.

Yeah, I want to talk about that memo in it to prosecutors acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General

Emil Bove said the case should be dismissed because it restricts Mayor Adams' ability to, quote,

devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that both claims escalated under

President Biden, both also cited Adams' re-election campaign. Jessica, these look like expressly

political reasons for dropping this case. What do you make of them? Yes, they do come across

as expressly political reasons,

and that's exactly the opposite about how decisions about who shall be prosecuted should be made.

And that's part of why decisions about whether cases should proceed or ordinarily left to the

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