Hi, everyone. It's 4 o'clock in New York. We come on the air with breaking news about an extraordinary behind-the-scenes standoff with consequences for the future of the rule of law in this country, literally on the line. It's happening right now in the wake of an

extraordinary demand by the Trump administration to drop criminal charges against New York's

current mayor, Eric Adams, in exchange for his cooperation with mass deportations.

The acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York has resigned this

afternoon. It comes three days after that directive had come down from acting deputy attorney

general Emil Bovey. She had supported the case that had been charged and brought against

Eric Adams, which at this hour remains in place. In a, I hate to use the word again, but extraordinary memo from Deputy A.G. Emil Boube that's been obtained by NBC News, responding to the Southern District of New York's refusal to drop this case against Adams.

Beauvais writes to Danielle Sassoon, quote, you indicated that the prosecution team is aware of your

communications with the Justice Department, that it is supportive of your approach and is

unwilling to comply with the order to dismiss this case. Accordingly, the assistant U.S.

attorneys principally responsible for this case are being placed on off-duty administrative leave

pending investigations by the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of Professional

Responsibility, both of which will also evaluate your conduct.

Sources tell NBC News that the case has been reassigned to the Justice Department's public

integrity section, And that happened when

the officials at SDMI refused to drop the case against Eric Adams because they believed in the

strength of the evidence. But when it got there, Trump officials were met with more resistance.

The acting head of the public integrity section also did the same thing that SDMI did and refused to dismiss this very strong, seemingly open and shut corruption and bribery case against Eric Adams and also resigned.

All this happened today, and it happened after Attorney General Pam Bondi was asked why the case remained in place,

even after her deputy, Bobe, demanded it be dismissed. Here's what she said. That case should be

dropped. It was done at the directive of Amel. So that case should be dropped. I did not know that it

had not been dropped yet, but I was certainly looking into that. It did not know there were people still standing up for the rule of law in America,

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