A top Manhattan federal prosecutor and two Department of Justice officials resigned on Thursday after being ordered to drop the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon quit because she refused to dismiss the case against Adams. The two officials who oversee the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, Kevin O. Driscoll and John Keller, also resigned.

“Because the law does not support a dismissal, and because I am confident Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged, I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations,” Sassoon wrote in a letter obtained by the New York Times.

Sassoon was told by DOJ official Emil Bove III on Monday to drop the case against Adams, who was indicted last fall on five counts of corruption related to his accepting benefits such as free luxury travel from Turkish officials, allegedly in exchange for pressuring city inspectors to provide permits for a new Manhattan building owned by the Turkish government. Adams pleaded not guilty.

“This directive in no way calls into question the integrity and efforts of the line prosecutors responsible: for the case, or your efforts in leading those prosecutors in connection with a matter you inherited,” Bove wrote in a two-page memo. “However, the Justice Department has determined that dismissal subject to the above-described conditions necessary.”

Part of Bove’s reasoning, he said, was that the case “unduly restricted Mayor Adams’s ability to devote full attention and resources” to President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda, and that the case “improperly interfered” with Adams’s campaign.

“Rather than be rewarded, Adams’s advocacy should be called out for what it is: an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case,” Sassoon wrote.

Adams had criticized then-President Joe Biden’s lax immigration policies that allowed New York to be overrun with illegal immigrants before he was indicted. Trump, who has said that Adams was treated “treated pretty unfairly,” has speculated about a possible connection between Adams’s statement on immigration and the Biden DOJ’s prosecution of the mayor.

“It’s very interesting when he essentially went against what was happening with the migrants coming in,” Trump said in December. “He made some pretty strong statements, like this is not sustainable.”