GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "News Hour."

A wave of resignations is shaking up the U.S. Justice Department after the Trump administration gave orders to drop the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

So far, at least seven officials have quit, and Adams is facing increasingly loud calls to step down.

AMNA NAWAZ: The exodus began yesterday with one of New York's top federal prosecutors, and it's already being dubbed the Thursday afternoon massacre, recalling the famous Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate scandal.

William Brangham begins our coverage.

ERIC ADAMS (D), Mayor of New York: Throughout this entire ordeal... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Today, New York City Mayor Eric Adams was playing defense.

ERIC ADAMS: I had to endure for something I didn't do.

I didn't do anything wrong.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Including a P.R.

blitz on FOX News.

All the while, the U.S. Department of Justice is in upheaval over the fate of the corruption case it brought against the mayor.

Yesterday, six DOJ officials resigned after refusing an order from the department in Washington to dismiss the case.

Acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, a Republican who clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, started the exodus.

Writing to Trump's new Attorney General Pam Bondi, Sassoon accused Mayor Adams and officials in the DOJ of what amounted to a quid pro quo, that Adams would aid Trump's immigration enforcement if the DOJ dropped his case.

Sassoon excoriated that alleged offer, writing -- quote -- "It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams' opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment."

Yesterday, Mayor Adams met with Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, and sat beside him on FOX News this morning as he denied Sassoon's claims.

ERIC ADAMS: That's quid pro quo.

That's a crime.

MAN: That is quid pro quo.

ERIC ADAMS: She took her three -- she -- it took her three weeks to report in front of her a criminal action?

Come on, this is silly.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But then Homan implied that, if Adams didn't help with immigration... TOM HOMAN, White House Border Czar: I will be in his office, up his butt, saying, where the hell is the agreement we came to?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General and former Trump lawyer Emil Bove, who ordered the dismissal, rejected the assertion that there was any quid pro quo.

In a response to Sassoon, he wrote that she -- quote -- "lost sight of her oath" and should not -- quote - - "interpret the Constitution in a manner inconsistent with the policies of a democratically elected president."

Adams had pleaded not guilty last year to federal charges of accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions from Turkish nationals.

Now a flurry of Democrats are calling on Adams to step down and calling on New York Governor Democrat Kathy Hochul to remove him from office, which she'd have the authority to do.

For DOJ officials, the so-called Thursday afternoon massacre continued today.

Hagan Scotten, the line prosecutor who handled the Adams case, quit with a defiant message to Bove, refusing his motion to dismiss the case.

Scotten wrote: "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."

Reportedly, Bove was able to find a DOJ lawyer willing to sign the motion this afternoon.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm William Brangham.

AMNA NAWAZ: Joining me now to discuss the upheaval within the Department of Justice is Jessica Roth, former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York and a professor at the Cardozo School of Law.

Jessica, welcome back to the "News Hour."

Let's just pick up where William left off there.

It looks like the Department of Justice has found someone who is willing to move forward with dismissing the charges against Mayor Adams.

So what happens now.

Is a judge required to accept that dismissal?

JESSICA ROTH, Former Federal Prosecutor: No, the judge is not required to accept the dismissal, certainly not right away.

The governing rule of criminal procedure requires leave of court to dismiss an indictment on a prosecutor's motion.

And so that suggests that the court is not meant to be a rubber stamp here.

But there's very limited authority and precedent for a court actually denying leave to dismiss.

The court has the authority to hold a hearing to inquire into the reasons for the dismissal and to make sure they're not improper and that they're in the public interest.

And I expect, especially given the record set forth in Danielle Sassoon's letter, that the court would have such a searching hearing here.

But if the court were to find that the reasons were improper, it's really not clear what would happen then, because if the court were to deny leave, but the DOJ still doesn't want to move forward with the prosecution, who would prosecute the case?

It's not clear that the court has authority to appoint a special prosecutor or somebody else to carry out this prosecution that DOJ is saying it does not want to carry forward.

AMNA NAWAZ: Let me ask you about another part of that letter Danielle Sassoon sent to the attorney general, Pam Bondi, in which she's saying Mayor Adams' lawyers are essentially asking the DOJ for what amounted to a quid pro quo, arguing his case should be dropped so he can carry out President Trump's immigration agenda.

Is that what it looked like to you here, a quid pro quo?

I mean, where is the legal bar or burden of proof there?

JESSICA ROTH: Well, at a minimum, it looked like an extraordinary abuse of prosecutorial power.

Whether it was exactly a quid pro quo or not, what's very clear in the initial memo for Mr. Bove directing the dismissal is that the reason for the dismissal had nothing to do with the merits of the case and was instead intended to leave Mayor Adams unfettered to pursue the president's immigration agenda.

And it said that the charges could be reinstated at a future date, very clearly leaving hanging over Mayor Adams' head the threat of re-indictment if in fact he did not comply with the president's immigration agenda and fell out of favor with the administration.

So, at a minimum, it's clearly improper and an abuse of the prosecutorial function.

AMNA NAWAZ: And, Jessica, for context here, we should point out we spoke to you just three days ago, when it first came up that federal prosecutors may move to drop this case.

And since then, we saw this wave of resignations, these refusals to dismiss the case.

I just want to get your reaction to how quickly things escalated here.

Have you ever seen anything like that in the Department of Justice?

JESSICA ROTH: No, this is an absolutely unprecedented situation.

And I think what we have seen is an extraordinary display of integrity and courage from the prosecutors in the Southern District of New York who refused to comply with an order with which they could not comply in good conscience, and also from the lawyers at the Department of Justice Public Integrity Section in Washington, D.C., who similarly refused to sign the order when the acting deputy attorney general transferred the case to them when the Southern District refused.

So this is an extraordinary moment of upheaval within the Department of Justice, where we see a standoff between the new leadership and the professional ranks of prosecutors who have been trained in a certain tradition of prosecutorial norms.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jessica Roth, former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, professor at Cardozo School of Law, always good to see you.

Thank you for your time.

JESSICA ROTH: My pleasure.