SEVENTH PROSECUTOR WHO RESIGNED IN ADAMS FOREIGN CAMAPIGN CONTRIBUTION CASE CLERKED FOR CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS
HAGAN SCOTTEN, DESCRIBED AS CONSERVATIVE, WON TWO BRONZE STARS
Hagan Scotten, the seventh Department of Justice employee to resign as a result of Emil Bove’s alleged attempt to secure a deal for Eric Adams to advance the Trump Administration’s immigration agenda in exchange for a dismissal in the case of indicted New York mayor, is a staunch conservative who clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts, according to a 2012 Reuters report. Scotten was the lead prosecutor in the Adams case for the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York.
In a scathing resignation letter to Emil Bove, Acting Deputy Attorney General, Scotten attacked Bove’s reasoning for dropping the case.
In short, the first justification for the motion—that Damian Williams’s role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence, and pursued under four different U.S. attorneys—is so weak as to be transparently pretextual. The second justification is worse. No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.
Email message from Hagan Scotten to Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove
Scotten added, “If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then 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.”
Scotten has a long record of high-profile convictions. In 2021, he was the lead prosecutor in the case of former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas and an alleged co-conspirator, Andrey Kukushkin, on campaign finance charges. Scotten secured the conviction of both men.
Scotten also obtained a conviction in the case of former FBI Special Agent Charles McGonigal, who pled guilty to conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions against Russia. Scotten also led the politically-charged proseuction of former New York Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin, a rare loss for SDNY.
Scotten’s long history of public service included nine years as a Special Forces officer, where he served in the 5th Special Forces Group and completed three tours in Iraq, earning two bronze stars.