Federal criminal charges were filed last year by the Biden-Harris administration against Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams in what many viewed as politically motivated retaliation against the mayor for speaking out critically against the administration's lax immigration enforcement policies.

This week, following a demand by a senior official in the Trump Justice Department that the charges against Adams be dropped, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan refused to comply and instead resigned from her position, according to The Hill.

Several other federal prosecutors in New York and Washington D.C. soon followed that lead and similarly resigned rather than move to dismiss the charges against Adams, but eventually, a prosecutor was found who agreed to follow the controversial order.

Resignation instead of compliance

On Monday, NBC News reported, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove issued an order for federal prosecutors to dismiss the criminal case against Mayor Adams, given that the pending prosecution was ostensibly interfering with the mayor's ability to effectively handle "illegal immigration and violent crime" in the city.

The responsibility for moving to dismiss the charges fell on now-former Acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, who took over last month following the early resignation of Biden-appointed former U.S. Attorney Damian Williams.

Yet, Sassoon refused to follow that order, and following an unsuccessful last-minute appeal on Wednesday to Attorney General Pam Bondi for reconsideration of the demand, she revealed to her colleagues on Thursday that she had resigned in protest.

Incredibly, in her appeal to Bondi, Sassoon let it be known that she had been considering filing additional corruption charges against Adams and also raised unfounded allegations of a possible quid pro quo, in which the Trump administration had agreed to drop the case against the mayor in exchange for his cooperation in cracking down on illegal immigration.

More resignations from the D.C. office

The saga doesn't end there, though, as NBC News reported that Acting DAG Bove then turned to the DOJ's Public Integrity Section in Washington D.C., which oversees all federal public corruption cases, and made similar demands for the criminal charges against Mayor Adams to be dismissed.

Once again, however, that order was met with resistance, and the acting head of that section, John Keller, along with three other prosecutors who worked under him, similarly tendered their resignations in protest.

Another top DOJ official, Kevin Driscoll, the acting head of the DOJ's Criminal Division, also resigned rather than follow Bove's order to drop the case against the mayor.

One prosecutor finally agrees to drop the charges

Eventually, per Reuters, Acting DAG Bove found his man in Ed Sullivan, a veteran career prosecutor with the Public Integrity Section who, after conferring with his colleagues, agreed to file a motion to dismiss the charges against Mayor Adams so that nobody else would feel compelled to resign in protest.

Had Sullivan not stepped up to fulfill Bove's order, the outlet noted, there had been serious discussions of a mass resignation of all 30 prosecutors in the section.

All told, at least six senior DOJ officials resigned, as did at least one other lower-level prosecutor in the Manhattan office, instead of following a direct order from a superior official that they disagreed with.

President Trump has shown that he is serious about ending the weaponization of the DOJ via politically motivated prosecutions that became commonplace during the prior administration, nor does he have any qualms about firing federal workers who refuse to fall in line with his agenda, and these resignations do little more than save him the trouble of having to terminate insubordinate employees who are more of a hindrance than a help.