Dropping NYC Mayor Criminal Case will get a ‘Outside’ lawyer Review….

Eric Adams HAS a US Justice Department sign off on his Federal Criminal Charges….

THAT has NOT happened for the judge who can refuse to ok that…

Instead?

Adams’ corruption case, and how the Trump Justice Dept. has tried to throw iot out, now goes for review to a former U.S. solicitor general during President George W. Bush’s administration.

A federal judge on Friday delayed a ruling on the Justice Department’s request to drop the corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, instead appointing an outside lawyer to present independent arguments on the motion, which was otherwise unopposed.

The lawyer the judge appointed, Paul D. Clement, is a political conservative who was the U.S. solicitor general during President George W. Bush’s administration.

The judge, Dale E. Ho of Federal District Court in Manhattan, also called for additional briefs from the parties and said he would hold an oral argument on March 14 if he felt it was necessary….

…

The events have increased pressure on Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, who said on Thursday that she would seek to impose strict new guardrails on the mayor’s administration rather than try to force him out of office.

Judge Ho noted in his order on Friday that, with a top Justice Department official and the mayor’s lawyers agreeing the case should end, he needed to hear other arguments.

“Normally, courts are aided in their decision-making through our system of adversarial testing,” Judge Ho wrote, “which can be particularly helpful in cases presenting unusual fact patterns or in case of great public importance.”

He said that because the Justice Department and Mr. Adams both wanted the charges dropped, “there has been no adversarial testing of the government’s position.”

…

Mr. Clement is an appellate lawyer at the firm Clement & Murphy in Washington and a distinguished lecturer in law at the Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court.

“This is such a savvy move by Judge Ho,” Stephen Vladeck, a Georgetown law professor, said in a post on Bluesky, the social media platform.

Mr. Clement not only has “impeccable (conservative) credentials,” Professor Vladeck wrote, but his years as solicitor general and even the 24 hours he once spent as acting attorney general mean that “he can participate with quite a bit of perspective as to the proper role of the Department of Justice.”…

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