All Hizzoner’s Dirt
E ntering his re-election year, Mayor de Blasio and his administration are the not-so-secret targets of a pair of criminal grand juries sitting in Manhattan — yet he still insists he’s beyond reproach.
State and federal prosecutors are looking into fiscal shenanigans and the outright sale of favors by the mayor’s team to fat-cat donors who opened their checkbooks for the mayor’s Campaign For One New York and other political slush funds — efforts he still maintains were run completely by the book.
Is the mayor himself a target? No sign of that — just yet, anyway. But reports say some of his top aides are the focus of grand jury attention, including Emma Wolfe, his chief political lieutenant, and his former campaign-finance director, Ross Offinger.
And for a guy who claims to not be worried, de Blasio sure is getting defensive. On Friday, he lashed out at his favorite target, the press, by complaining that reporters aren’t scrutinizing similar funds by “wealthy people spending endless money” to lobby against his policies, like hiking their taxes.
“Is that ever going to interest you?” he asked sarcastically on WNYC Radio.
Well, it would — if any laws were violated. Or if those “wealthy people” seemed to be selling political favors at City Hall. But no, that was Team de Blasio.
The mayor also tried rationalizing: He defended CONY — which got most of its money from people doing business with the city — by saying the cash was all for “good causes” like universal pre-K and affordable housing, so what’s the harm?
Well, see above: that whole “selling political favors at City Hall” thing.
Plus: CONY money also went to promote de Blasio’s personal ambitions: his feckless drive to become a national progressive leader.
Maybe de Blasio thinks the whole thing is a vendetta by US Attorney Preet Bharara — who’s been remarkably fair and bipartisan about rooting out corruption — and Manhattan DA Cy Vance. But the grand jury probes — ongoing since last April — suggest otherwise.
Fact is, de Blasio has only himself and his hypocrisy to blame. He won election by denouncing the very practices in which he and his aides engaged from the moment they took office.
We hope the signs of grand jury activity suggest this mess is moving toward a resolution. Voters deserve a clear picture — and so do all of de Blasio’s potential rivals.