The quid pro quo

Emil Bove is Trump’s deputy attorney general. Danielle Sassoon is the US attorney for the Southern District of New York. Eric Adams is the mayor of New York City. Bove ordered Sassoon to drop corruption charges against Adams. He claimed the case was interfering with Adams’ ability to help Trump tackle illegal immigration and violent crime.

The indictment alleges Adams received $100,000 worth of private jet travel and luxury hotel stays from Turkish nationals in exchange for political favors. It also charges him with wire fraud and bribery related to foreign campaign contributions.

Sassoon, the principled prosecutor

Sassoon clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, the celebrated hardline law-and-order conservative. But the Supreme Court thoroughly compromised its integrity to enable Trump’s reelection. So it’s no wonder Bove assumed no federal prosecutor would dare refuse his order — no matter how blatantly corrupt.

Imagine his shock, then, when Sassoon not only refused his order but denounced its corrupt intent in her indignant resignation letter. Not to mention the aftershocks he must have felt when six colleagues in New York and DC followed her lead.

Of course, Trump ran on using the DOJ to protect his friends and persecute his enemies. Indeed, too little is being reported about how Bove got other prosecutors to drop charges against WWE co-founder Vince McMahon, who allegedly covered up multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. But this scandal is rivaling the infamous Saturday Night Massacre, when Nixon ran through several prosecutors until he found one willing to do his corrupt bidding.

Why women should rule

Finally, just like Cassidy Hutchinson, the Jan 6 star witness, Sassoon is proving it takes a Republican woman to show Republican men what a profile in courage looks like. After all, Trump only had to threaten their reelection for Republican men to fall in line, confirming nominees they knew were dangerous to national security and public health.

By contrast, instead of doing Trump’s corrupt bidding, Sassoon showed more balls than all of them combined.