NEW YORK — As more prosecutors resigned from the Justice Department over an order to drop the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, the Democratic politician who has warmed to President Trump appeared on a Fox News show with the new U.S. border czar.

An assistant U.S. attorney involved in prosecuting Adams became at least the seventh person to resign amid the standoff over the future of the case, telling the department’s second in command Friday that it would take a “fool” or a “coward” to meet his demand to drop the charges.

Prosecutor Hagan Scotten became the latest casualty in an epic showdown between Justice Department leadership in Washington and its office in New York, which has long prided itself on its independence.

Scotten, along with other prosecutors in the Adams case, was suspended with pay Thursday by acting deputy U.S. Atty. Gen. Emil Bove, who launched a probe of the prosecutors that he said would determine whether they keep their jobs.

Bove, who had represented Trump against criminal charges before he was elected for a second term as president in November, on Monday directed Danielle Sassoon, the Republican interim U.S. attorney in New York, to drop the charges against Adams.

Instead, she resigned along with five high-ranking Justice Department officials in Washington on Thursday, a day after she sent a letter to Trump’s new attorney general, Pam Bondi. Bove wrote a scolding letter back.

Bove instructed prosecutors in the department’s public integrity section Friday to decide among themselves who should sign on to a motion to dismiss Adams’ case. The section’s acting chief was among the officials who quit Thursday.

In a resignation letter to Bove, Scotten said he was “entirely in agreement” with Sassoon’s refusal to seek dismissal of charges that the mayor had accepted over $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks from foreign nationals looking to buy his influence while he was Brooklyn borough president and campaigning to be mayor.

Among reasons for seeking to have charges dropped, Bove said the mayor was needed in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts and to decrease violent crime. He also said the charges were brought too close to this year’s mayoral contest and could be reinstated after the election.

In his resignation letter, Scotten wrote: “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.”

Meanwhile, Adams said he plans to allow an immigration enforcement office to be established at New York’s notorious Rikers Island jail. That’s just part of an complex agreement the Trump administration has reached with the Democratic mayor, border czar Tom Homan said Friday in a joint appearance.

Homan and Adams appeared side by side on “Fox & Friends” a day after the two announced that Adams had agreed to sign an executive order reestablishing an office for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the jail. One purpose of the office will be to share intelligence on gangs, they said.

The agreement is being heavily criticized by New York City Council leaders. The enhanced cooperation between Adams and the Trump administration detailed in Friday’s interview has accelerated criticism that the mayor has become beholden to the president in exchange for saving him from criminal prosecution.

Adams is facing a renewed wave of calls to resign, with critics arguing that he has become inextricably linked with the president’s agenda to the point that he cannot independently run the city. In a statement Friday afternoon, Adams sought to dispel those concerns.

“I want to be crystal clear with New Yorkers: I never offered — nor did anyone offer on my behalf — any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case. Never,” he said. “I am solely beholden to the 8.3 million New Yorkers that I represent and I will always put this city first.”

Homan said the agreement with Adams on Rikers, which has been under court orders to resolve longstanding problems with security, use of force and more, was just one piece of a larger collaboration.

“We’re working on some other things that we don’t really want to talk about in open areas because the City Council will be putting roadblocks upon us,” Homan said. “But the mayor and me have committed to several other things that will make the city safer.”

At one point, the border czar also issued a clear warning to the mayor should Adams decide not to comply with the president’s agenda in the future.

“If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City, and we won’t be sitting on the couch. I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’ ” Homan said.

New York City Council leaders said in a statement Thursday that city law prohibits an ICE office at Rikers. They said the “announcement only deepens the concern that the mayor is prioritizing the interests of the Trump Administration over those of New Yorkers.”

The vast majority of the 6,000 people at Rikers Island are pretrial defendants, according to a 2023 comptroller report. It is unclear how an executive order from Adams could help ICE create a dragnet for immigrants it is targeting without offering the agency access to people without criminal records, such as those who are released on bail or whose charges have been dismissed.

Adams and Homan said they agree on flagging criminals for deportation.

Adams deflected questions about the federal prosecutors who have resigned in protest — one of whom accused the Justice Department of accepting a “quid pro quo.”

“If you don’t help them, they could refile the charges,” host Steve Doocy said to Adams.

“No,” Adams shot back, adding “I don’t get into the legalese. I have an attorney to do that, and I pay a lot for that.”

Scotten, the prosecutor who resigned Friday, said he was following “a tradition in public service of resigning in a last-ditch effort to head off a serious mistake.”

He said he could see how a president such as Trump, with a background in business and politics, “might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal.”

But Scotten said any prosecutor “would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way.”

He 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.”

Adams pleaded not guilty to the charges in September. He has since bonded at times with Trump, who has criticized the case and said he was open to pardoning the mayor, who was a registered Republican in the 1990s.

Sisak, Neumeister and Attanasio write for the Associated Press. Los Angeles Times staff and AP writer Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, N.Y., contributed to this report.