Mayor’s final chance - Preet Bharara to question Mayor
de Blasio over City Hall corruption
Perhaps it was just a poor choice of
words, or was it a Freudian slip? Either way, Mayor Bill de Blasio used a
curious phrase in describing his planned meeting with federal prosecutors.
“This set of allegations just doesn’t
comport with who I am,” he said on NY1.
He said he will be “setting the record straight” on investigations into whether
he created an illegal pay-to-play scheme.
A fair reading of the “set of
allegations” phrase, along with what we know, suggests de Blasio is getting a
last chance to convince the feds he shouldn’t face specific criminal charges.
If that’s the case, de Blasio is likely
doomed. Such final meetings are routine as prosecutors make sure they haven’t
missed important evidence that would gut the case later.
Legal arguments usually fail and
political ones always do. New evidence is the only escape hatch.
Unless the mayor is holding an ace in
the hole, he’d better be careful. Otherwise, he could talk himself into a perjury
charge as well.
City tax bid hits home
- You think your money is yours, but New York City Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen
begs to differ.
City Hall wants a new “mansion tax” of
2.5 percent on any house sale above $2 million. Asked if she thought the tax might
crimp sales, Glen told the Wall Street Journal the criticism is ridiculous and added,
“If you look at how much money we’ve left on the table for the past two years
while this thing went sideways, it makes me nuts.”
In other words, be grateful the city let
you keep its money for two years. Now hand it over.
Things are starting to get real for
Mayor de Blasio. First the mayor was questioned for
nearly two hours by Manhattan prosecutors over his fund-raising for state
Senate elections — and now Hizzoner has agreed to talk to the feds because he
wants to convince them to stop investigating
him for possible corruption at City Hall, it
was reported Friday.
Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara
set up the meeting with de Blasio, which will be held in the next two weeks
without the protection of immunity, according
to WNBC/Channel 4.
Sources told the station that the
mayor is convinced he can prove to investigators that he has not traded
government favors for political donations during his time in office.
The mayor ultimately believes he can
sway them to drop their probe, the sources added.
The feds first began zeroing in on
the mayor last October, when they subpoenaed thousands of e-mails and
documents from his office pertaining to his 2013 campaign and nonprofit group,
the Campaign for One New York.
The nonprofit was shut down and is
charged with promoting the mayor’s progressive agenda, including eliminating
income inequality, gentrification and police brutality.
It allegedly funneled money from
wealthy donors into de Blasio’s campaign coffers. The nonprofit’s campaign
finance director, Ross Offinger, has been under scrutiny for his role in the
operation.
The probe also is focusing on
whether de Blasio and his aides traded favors in exchange for campaign and
nonprofit donations.
The mayor’s meeting with Bharara was
revealed just
days after Hizzoner admitted for the very first time to being grilled by investigators over his campaign
fund-raising.
De Blasio said Wednesday the
sit-down took place a few weeks ago at the request of the Manhattan DA’s
Office.
On Friday, de
Blasio also defended the city’s $11.7 million in payouts for legal bills to protect the administration against
the numerous probes.
“Anything related to city employees
— and I’m not talking about myself, I’m talking about all the other city
employees who have been a part of this process — they need representation. It’s
an American right,” he said on WNYC Radio. “Obviously they shouldn’t have to
pay for it out of their own pockets in regards to their city responsibilities.” De Blasio also insisted the probes
are a huge waste of time and money because everything his administration has
done has been aboveboard.
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