What to Know About the Status of the Eric Adams Corruption Case

Paul D. Clement, the lawyer whom a federal judge asked to deliver independent arguments on the Trump Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams of New York, is to deliver his views to the court on Friday.

The widely anticipated filing was sought by the judge, Dale E. Ho, because the Justice Department and Mr. Adams — adversaries when the case was brought in September during the Biden administration — are now on the same side.

The department’s new leadership, under President Trump, agrees with Mr. Adams that the prosecution should end. The motion says the case hindered the mayor from cooperating with President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Mr. Adams, a Democrat, was indicted in September on bribery, fraud and other charges. He has pleaded not guilty and has denied wrongdoing. The department’s decision to seek dismissal of the charges threw the case into tumult, leading to the resignations of prosecutors in Manhattan and Washington and calls by several of Mr. Adams’s campaign opponents that he step down. The trial was postponed indefinitely.

Mr. Clement, who was U.S. solicitor general during President George W. Bush’s administration, has argued more than 100 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Now in private practice, he has continued to litigate, with a focus on conservative causes.

The judge has already received briefs from other outsiders, like Common Cause, a good-government advocacy organization, as well as former U.S. attorneys, federal judges, law professors and ethics experts. There was even a filing by Michael T. Flynn, a national security adviser to President Trump in his first term.