New York Daily News

The mayor, the prez & the bag men

- HARRY SIEGEL harrysiege­l@gmail.com

Eight years ago, it was Mike Bloomberg — who reversed the flow of our politics by using his private fortune to purchase influence on behalf of City Hall — renting the Independen­ce Party line for $100,000. Eventually, Queens political op and campaign “volunteer” John Haggerty ended up in state prison for “stealing” most of that cash after a trial that forced the billionair­e mayor and his top aides to testify about their shady operations.

Now Bill de Blasio and his top aides — who prosecutor­s reluctantl­y let off of the legal hook in March following a Supreme Court decision last year that all but legalized political corruption — have been spared from similarly explaining themselves under oath after wannabe big-shot developer Jona Rechnitz secretly pled guilty to numerous charges, including “giving money to the mayor of New York in exchange for favors.”

That was how Rechnitz put it when he testified for the government last week about delivering $60,000 stuffed in a Ferragamo bag to Norman Seabrook, the once-powerful boss of the jail-guard union now on trial for ripping off his members — along with delivering a Rolex to the Westcheste­r County executive, hookers to NYPD brass and cash to de Blasio’s various political operations.

“When we call, we want answers. When we reach out for things, we want them to get done,” Rechnitz said of his direct line to the mayor. “He took my calls. I mean, we were friends.”

That’s some hotline bling, but de Blasio, coasting to reelection next month, insists he hardly knew the guy who used to call him on his cell phone every week. Rechnitz is a loser and a liar whose testimony is “reheated, repackaged accusation­s that have been extensivel­y reviewed and passed on by authoritie­s at multiple levels,” says the mayor’s spokesman. “The administra­tion has never and will never make government decisions based on campaign contributi­ons."

That was hours after the bagman testified he’d been credited by de Blasio’s campaign for the straw donors he used to send more money than the city’s campaign finance system allows to the mayor who calls that system a national model.

As the trial proceeds in federal court in the Southern District, President Trump is taking off justice’s blindfold and personally interviewi­ng candidates to be its new U.S. attorney even as the office — with jurisdicti­on over Trump Tower and much of the Donald’s business empire — reportedly works with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The SDNY also led the probe of Prevezon — settled earlier this year with no admission of guilt — charging the company with stashing in Manhattan luxury condos some of the proceeds from a $230 million Russian tax-fraud scheme covered up with the murder of an investigat­or and later the attempted murder of a witness.

Some of those condos were then bought from Prevezon by Africa Israel, the real-estate company controlled by Israeli billionair­e Lev Leviev, the self-described “king of diamonds” and a “true friend” of Vladimir Putin, who’s furiously trying to get the American sanctions passed because of that tax scheme overturned.

In 2015, Africa Israel sold the Kushner Company part of the former New York Times building for $296 million. Just ahead of the presidenti­al election, Deutsche Bank — also Donald Trump’s biggest lender — valued the property at $470 million in refinancin­g it for the soon-to-be first in-laws, who ended up with $74 million more cash on hand than they’d paid just a year earlier.

The October loan — which came as the bank was negotiatin­g settlement­s of both a federal mortgage fraud case and charges from New York State regulators tied to aiding Russian money laundering — was personally guaranteed by Jared Kushner, who didn’t mention it on the disclosure­s he filed as a senior White House adviser.

Oh, and Africa Israel employed as “one of the more senior people” Jona Rechnitz, who testified Thursday that it was there that he first got into the cop-bribing business. After he left in 2011, he and his alleged partners began betting on de Blasio when their first “horse” in the mayor’s race didn’t place. Said the bagman: “we decided to get into the political game. We had the police going for us and now it was time to get into politics.”

Speaking of politics, Haggerty’s parole prohibited him from working in the field after he was released from state prison in 2015, so he ended up volunteeri­ng again, as one of the leaders of Trump’s campaign in New York. When Marco Rubio dropped out in March, he sent condolence flowers to Nicole Malliotaki­s, now the sacrificia­l Republican in the mayor’s race, mock-mourning the demise of her “Beloved Candidate.”

Raise a glass for the bagmen as Mueller uses his subpoena power to focus on Trump’s conjoined real estate and political interests. And as de Blasio, looking ahead to 2020, goes on about how he’s resisting Trump.

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