and i think in this letter. >> hagen scott. >> is really calling. that out. you are just doing. >> the president's bidding. >> he sold his soul for power, and you are really seeing how different two different two prosecutors, two sets of prosecutors from this. >> office have behaved. >> and like. >> i said. >> daniel sassoon and. >> hagen scott. >> have. >> made all of us. >> as cny. >> lambs proud. >> so, tom. >> what's next? >> that's the big question. i mean, somebody does at some point need to file a motion here. who that person is. i'm not clear who that's going to be. i think one thing to keep in mind is that donald trump signed an executive order that directly speaks to the justice department, saying you will advance the interests of this administration. you will effectively, zealously pursue our position on issues. and so happening in just a couple of hours, this same u.s. attorney's office is going to be defending the administration as it pertains to some of the efforts of doge. that is out there and what they're doing. so it's putting them in a posi

now, hagen scott is worth mentioning, is not a liberal like me. he was a law clerk to the chief justice of the united states. he was, in addition. someone who served in iraq and got two bronze stars. and incidentally, he was first in his class at harvard law school. but he said, quite rightly, that only a fool or a coward would sign this motion to dismiss a valid investigation that emil bove, who is now in charge of the justice department temporarily, that emil bove admitted was not based on law or fact, but simply the desire to put pressure on eric adams to do the president's bidding when it comes to accelerating the deportation of people that the president thinks don't belong in the country. all of that is a long story. but to make a long story short, it is not just the unitary executive that is at stake here. it is the unitary government in the hands of unelected people. it's not as though donald trump is doing all of this. that would be bad enough. that would usurp the power of the purse. when he threatens not to spend money that congress has

his name is hagen scott, and he was one of the line assistants working on this case. and he submitted a letter of resignation to the justice department today, in which he points out that he agrees with the decision not to bring the case, and also says that what they were suggesting that they wanted the prosecutors to do was to essentially dangle a carrot over new york mayor eric adams to get him to get him to do what the administration wanted. and then in exchange, potentially, if he didn't have the stick of potentially indicting him down the road. so in this letter, which you say, which is scathing, hagen writes, any assistant u.s. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way, if no lawyer within earshot of the president is willing to give him that advice, then i expect he will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion, but it was never going to be me. now, boris, it's important to point out some of the a

was distracting adams from devoting his full attention to the president's priorities on attorney hagen scott in writing, no system of ordered liberty can allow the government to use the care of dismissing charges or the stick bring them again to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives. adding, if no lawyer within earshot of the president is willing to give him that advice, then i expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion. but it was never going to be me. as adams now faces growing calls to step down, the pressure he faces when it comes to supporting mr. trump's immigration objectives on full display as the mayor and trump's border czar tom homan appeared together this morning on fox. >> if he doesn't come through, i'll be back in new york city and we won't be sitting on a couch. i'll be in his office saying where the hell is the agreement we came to? >> reporter: adams pushing back on the idea of any quid pro quo, saying tonight, i want to be crystal clear with new yorkers, i never offered nor did anyone offe

now, the latest to go is is a prosecutor, hagen scott. and here in the southern district of new york and on his way out, he really scorched the bosses, including emil bove, who is the acting deputy attorney general. he's sort of been the one who has been orchestrating all of this, trying to push people to file this dismissal. i'll read you just a part of what he says. as he walked out the door, he said, but any assistant u.s. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow the allow. using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials. in this way. if no lawyer within earshot of the president is willing to give him that advice, then i expect he will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion, but it was never going to be me. now, what he's referring to here is this idea that they would drop this case against eric adams. the justice department is planning to drop this case against eric adams in exchange that he would, with the idea that he would

but it was ausa hagen scott and scorcher of a resignation letter that left many in awe.wrote in part, quote, any assistant u.s. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way. if no lawyer within earshot of the president is willing to give him that advice, then i expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion. but it was never going to be me. joining me now is andrew weissmann, former fbi general counsel, msnbc legal analyst, the co-host of the podcast main justice, and the coauthor of the trump indictments. the historic charging documents with commentary. andrew, it's good to see you. i think you share my kind of disbelief at how things have kind of unraveled this week at s.d.n.y. but i wanted to ask you straight out of the gate. i think judge ho orders a hearing in this case. i think he orders a full blown hearing in this case before it gets dismissed. what would that hearing look like? >> so agree

and the one hagen scott, and that resigned today. he was a former clerk for justice roberts and judge kavanaugh when he was a judge. um, so these are conservative republicans that are resigning out of this sense of ethics. jeff zeleny what is the trump white house saying about this all? >> and, jake, given that background, there is very important for what we're about to hear and what we heard from president trump in the oval office, he said he had nothing to do with the decision to remove the charges here. of course, the allegations are that the white house wanted a sympathetic figure in eric adams to help enforce immigration law. that was the underlying cause of all this. but the president falsely said that these doj officials were all political appointees who preceded him from the biden administration. take a listen. >> if they had a problem. and these are mostly people from the previous administration, you understand. so they weren't going to be there anyway. they were going to all be gone or dismissed. if not, uh, they know on tu

so, you know, using the language of the letter of hagen scott.nd he found the fool and he found the coward. it was he made himself, you. >> know, katie benner. at this instance, right? to your point, there's this internal kind of struggle that's happening at the doj. but then there's also the external messaging that you talk about, which is trump taking and capturing this idea and saying that the rule of law is now his as he. >> defines it. >> so is the message that he's sending out to the people. >> it's not. >> so much his opponents or the people that are resisting him, but maybe. >> to the. >> supporters that are on the fence about whether or not i should get my hands dirty, isn't he now sending. >> out the message. >> it's okay, get your hands dirty because i got. >> your back. >> i have your back or i'll punish you if you don't. >> and i think that one of the. >> things. >> we've seen. >> and when we think about the way the public. >> has reacted to donald trump. >> we. >> think about the way that politicians. >> whether it's congress. >> or

but hagen scott is very similarly situated.urt in d.c. for then judge brett kavanaugh before he was elevated to the supreme court. he then clerked for chief justice john roberts. i heard today that if danielle sassoon had not been selected to be the acting u.s. attorney for the southern district, the natural other choice would have been hagan scotten, who was her co-chief of appeals before she herself was elevated. the fact that hagan scotten has gone from being sort of a darling of the conservative movement, and someone that the trump administration thought that they could trust, so much so that he was their backup choice to be the acting u.s. attorney. now, to going on administrative leave is a stunning turnabout. i also want to tell you, my phone is blowing up with texts from former federal prosecutors that i know, including many in the southern district and all of them to a fault, are unprintable because people are telling me that what has happened today is a complete and utter blank show, that emil bove is blanking crazy,

>> well, i think danielle sassoon and hagen scott both make a pretty compelling case here, that theres something that the judge can do, because the judge does have to at least find this is in the public interest, and both of them are saying, no, this is pretextual. this is not at all in the public interest. and so at a minimum, i think you're going to see judge ho have a really, you know, tough inquiry for the whichever prosecutor it is that's going to get up there and have to defend this about what these reasons. >> are. >> and if they are reasons that really are about upholding the constitution or just, you know, demonstrating loyalty to donald trump. so i do think that judge ho is going to engage in that. i don't think he's just going to rubber stamp this. >> how does. >> adams end up sort. >> of in. >> a group. >> of citizens with the january 6th insurrectionists, whose side trump is taking. against merrick garland's. >> justice department? >> he doesn't end up with them. he ends. >> up worse. >> than them. >> they were. >> pardoned. and they have videotapes of them committing cri