The resignation deepens a crisis at the Justice Department sparked by a demand to dismiss criminal charges against New York City’s mayor.

NEW YORK — Hagan Scotten, the lead prosecutor in Mayor Eric Adams’s federal corruption case, has quit over the Justice Department’s demand that the case be dismissed, calling any lawyer who would move in court to toss the matter a “fool” or “coward,” according to a copy of a letter obtained Friday.

When Danielle Sassoon's college newspaper asked her two decades ago for three words she would use to describe herself, the first word the future lawyer said was "independent."