Welcome to the News Hour. A wave of resignations is shaking up the U.S. Justice Department after the Trump administration gave orders to drop the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. So far, at least seven officials have quit, and Adams is facing increasingly loud calls to step down.

The exodus began yesterday with one of New York's top federal prosecutors, and it's already

being dubbed the Thursday afternoon massacre, recalling the famous Saturday night massacre

during the Watergate scandal.

William Brangham begins our coverage.

Throughout this entire ordeal, today, New York City Mayor Eric Adams was playing defense.

I had to endure for something I didn't do. I didn't do anything wrong.

Including a PR blitz on Fox News.

All the while, the U.S. Department of Justice is in upheaval

over the fate of the corruption case it brought against the mayor.

Yesterday, six DOJ officials resigned after refusing an order from the department in Washington to dismiss the case. Acting U.S.

attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, a Republican who clerked for

the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, started

the exodus.

Writing to Trump's new Attorney General, Pam Bondi, Sassoon accused Mayor Adams and officials in the DOJ

of what amounted to a quid pro quo, that Adams would aid Trump's immigration enforcement if the DOJ dropped his case.

Sassoon excoriated that alleged offer, writing, quote,

It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams' opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal

of a criminal indictment.

Yesterday, Mayor Adams met with Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, and sat beside him on Fox

News this morning as he denied Sassoon's claims.

That's quid pro quo.

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