Before Maya Wiley became an MSNBC commentator and candidate for mayor,
her most public moments came when she fell under the media’s glare for
her role advising Mayor de Blasio and his administration on how to raise
money legally.
The unwanted attention started during the first three years of de Blasio’s first term and it continues to linger.
In 2015, in what may now seem like a prescient assessment, Wiley summed up her role as de Blasio’s legal counsel in a video posted online by his wife, Chirlane McCray.
“I’m Maya Wiley. I’m counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, and that means
I’m — I keep him out of jail,” she said jokingly. “I advise him on legal
issues, but I’m also part of his senior team.”
De Blasio has so far avoided jail, despite allegations of fundraising
malpractice. But now, about four months into Wiley’s run for mayor,
exactly what role she played in counseling Team de Blasio — and in
vetting donations to his cause — is still not entirely clear.
But documents obtained by the Daily News show that the part Wiley did
play appears to be much more extensive than has previously been
reported.
The newly unearthed records show that, aside from her connection to the
controversial Campaign for One New York, Wiley also appears to have
played a key part in vetting donors to the Mayor’s Fund to Advance NYC, a
nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of New Yorkers.
Wiley, who served as the mayor’s legal counsel for about two years,
joined the de Blasio administration in the first year of his first term
in office. Within months, she became involved in providing legal advice
on how to ensure compliance with conflict-of-interest rules when it came
to the Campaign for One New York, part of de Blasio’s fundraising
apparatus.
The Campaign for One
New York, also known as CONY, was established just weeks before de
Blasio took office in 2014 and almost immediately began collecting
donations to help promote his efforts to launch universal pre-K, widely
regarded as his signature policy achievement in City Hall. After pre-K
launched, the nonprofit took on a more general focus, but continued to
raise — and spend — money to promote de Blasio’s priorities.
But it didn’t take long for CONY’s operation to come under scrutiny.
Eventually, that led to probes from the city’s Department of
Investigation, the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the state’s
Joint Commission on Public Ethics.
Last Friday, mayoral candidate Maya Wiley held a news
conference to blast Gov. Andrew Cuomo for what she deemed were ethical
lapses — including reports he’d improperly pressured staff to help on
his book “American Crisis.”
She promised that as mayor, she’d run an honest,
transparent administration. She did not mention — or eagerly discuss
when reporters inquired — another ethics issue: her proximity to the
conflict-of-interest scandals that tarnished Mayor Bill de Blasio’s
tenure at City Hall.
As the mayor’s first general counsel, or in-house lawyer,
Wiley drafted a memo advising him on how he could legally solicit
donations for a nonprofit he’d formed called Campaign for One New York
(CONY) without violating conflict-of-interest rules. De Blasio
nevertheless wound up the target of federal, state and local ethics
investigations.
Federal prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges, but determined that de Blasio had intervened on behalf of donors with business before the city.
The state Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) cited
several donors for providing illegal gifts to the mayor with their CONY
contributions. And the city Department of Investigation (DOI) concluded that de Blasio had violated city ethics rules by soliciting individuals with pending matters at City Hall.
This week, in response to a long list of questions from
THE CITY, Wiley’s campaign released a terse statement acknowledging that
while she had provided the mayor with ethical boundaries for his CONY
fundraising, her advice “was not always followed.”
“In her role as counsel to the mayor, Maya provided legal
guidance regarding the mayor’s involvement in fundraising for
non-profit organizations,” the campaign stated. “Maya has made clear she
was not involved with Campaign for One New York nor its implementation
of the guidance which she provided. It is clear from DOI’s conclusion
the guidance was not always followed.”
On Wednesday, she declined to directly answer most of THE
CITY’s questions during a brief interview as she campaigned in The
Bronx. Asked how she felt about the mayor not following her guidance,
she replied, “I stand by my advice and when I am mayor will always take
the advice of my lawyers.”
Wiley also gave de Blasio a way to conceal from the
public City Hall’s internal communications with outside political
consultants who were paid big bucks from the money he’d raised. She
dubbed these consultants “agents of the city” — a justification
ultimately shot down by the courts.
Wiley’s
advice on CONY and her use of the “agents of the city” argument raise
questions about her good government promises, said Sal Albanese, a
former City Council member from Brooklyn who first ran for mayor against
de Blasio in the 2013 Democratic primary and has since been a
consistent critic of his fundraising tactics.
“It was almost like an exercise in, ‘Let’s see how we can
make this happen for the mayor,’” said Albanese, who is now seeking a
Council seat on Staten Island. “Wiley should have shut that whole thing
down immediately,” he added. “The whole thing is a conflict of
interest.”
A major donor to Mayor de Blasio’s since-shuttered nonprofit is suing to block a state probe of its $60,000 in contributions. Broadway Stages claims that the Joint Commission on Public Ethics
exceeded its authority by slapping the TV and film production company
with an Aug. 19 subpoena. The subpoena seeks copies of “all communications” between Broadway
Stages and de Blasio, his defunct Campaign for One New York charity and
lobbyist James Capalino, according to the lawsuit filed in state Supreme
Court in Albany. Broadway Stages — whose CEO and president, Gina Argento, raised more
than $110,000 for de Blasio’s 2013 campaign and transition, making her
Hizzoner’s No. 2 bundler — claims that state law allows JCOPE to
investigate only officials who receive gifts, and not those who give
them. Its lawsuit, filed Thursday, also denies that the company donated to
CONY “at the direction of the Mayor (or any other public official).”
Mayor
Bill de Blasio violated conflict of interest rules after being warned
repeatedly not to solicit donations from individuals actively seeking
tax breaks, deed transfers and other favors from his administration,
according to a Department of Investigation report obtained by THE CITY.
The finding followed a two-and-a-half year DOI probe that ended in October but was never made public. THE CITY secured the 15-page “closing memo” — which the DOI heavily censored — via the Freedom of Information Law.
During
the probe, DOI investigators questioned de Blasio about warnings by
both the city Conflict of Interest Board (COIB) and his own counsel. The
mayor claimed he wasn’t aware of such warnings – and said he couldn’t
recall any details of conversations he had with several developers who
recounted his personal requests for checks.
The report reveals DOI substantiated the allegation that de Blasio sought checks for the now-defunct Campaign for One New York
fund from individuals “who had or whose organization had a matter
pending or about to be pending before any executive branch of the city.”
The
nonprofit formed as de Blasio arrived at City Hall in 2014 and hired
consultants to press for support for his pet programs, such as universal
Pre-K and affordable housing.
The
closing memo was heavily censored by DOI, which cited protecting the
privacy of witnesses and not wanting to reveal unsubstantiated
allegations. The entire section marked “Conclusion and Recommendations”
was blacked out.
The
revelation of the DOI conflict-of-interest finding comes as de Blasio
toys with a run for the White House. The mayor told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer
last week he has “not ruled it out,” and his advisors have made clear he
intends to make up his mind soon.
The
mayor’s office, which has had the DOI report since Friday morning, did
not respond to detailed questions submitted by THE CITY Wednesday
morning.
Instead,
a spokesperson released a brief statement: “These questions are asked
and answered. Fundraising for the now-defunct Campaign for One New York
was thoroughly reviewed by multiple parties and it was determined there
was no wrongdoing. It’s been said a million times: the Mayor acted
lawfully and ethically.”
In
its report, DOI questioned the competence of de Blasio’s system for
vetting possible donors for conflicts, stating “how the system was
overseen remained unclear, as did whether the vetting research was
conducted thoroughly and completely.”
The
report noted that “there does not appear to have been any particular
individual who exercised supervision over the vetting process.” And it
revealed aides couldn’t agree on who was supposed to be doing the
vetting to avoid conflicts.
De
Blasio, for example, told DOI his then-general counsel, Maya Wiley, and
another aide “owned” the vetting process. But Wiley told DOI
investigators she had “no significant involvement” in that process after
issuing an April 2014 memo spelling out specific areas of conflict that
would constitute a violation of city ethics rules.
Another
unnamed aide told DOI that a colleague was responsible for vetting
potential donors – but that colleague then “denied any significant role
in the vetting process.” That aide “did not know who was responsible for
overseeing the vetting process.”
The DOI inquiry began April 13, 2016, shortly after de Blasio shut down Campaign for One New York.
Investigators
interviewed dozens of witnesses, including the mayor, multiple donors,
attorneys and lobbyists who helped raise funds for Campaign for One New
York, and public relations and political consultants hired by the
mayor’s group: SKDK Knickerbocker, AKPD Message & Media, Berlin
Rosen and Hilltop Public Solutions.
The investigation wasn’t formally closed until Oct. 22, 2018. Four weeks later, de Blasio fired DOI Commissioner Mark Peters
Then there's this:
Despite
the agency’s censorship efforts, the report obtained by THE CITY
provides the most extensive portrayal yet of de Blasio’s fundraising
tactics as he sought out five- and six-figure checks for the Campaign
for One New York.
The
mayor set aside weekly “call times” in which he “walked around the
block as he called potential donors on his cell phone.” By the summer of
2015, he was making six to 10 such calls each week. Aides would
instruct him on which donors he could request money from. With some he’d
simply seek “support,” and an aide would follow up soon after with a
specific money request.
That visual I highlighted reminded me of the video where that homeless woman caught the Blaz doing his yoga exercises at the Park Slope Y where he daily wastes 4 hours of civic service time commuting with a police escort to and then to the City Hall.
In a post I wrote on Impunity City, I thought the most interesting thing about that confrontation was not only that Ms. Adegusun brought up the fact that he broke his promise to house homeless people but that she caught him while he was holding a Blackberry.
While she was politely trying to get through to him, he told her he was working out and it wasn't the time and place to discuss this issue. Even though he had enough time to text as she was speaking to him.
For an exercise that takes concentration and discipline, why is he with diddling with his Blackberry and texting people. This gives the impression that he was still soliciting donors and doling favors.
As we all know now, he got up and speedwalked away.
Mayor de Blasio has decided to “let” taxpayers foot most of the $2.3 million bill he owes the lawyers who defended him in probes that found he’d intervened on behalf of donors seeking favors from City Hall.
After months of insisting he would never ask the public to pay what he owed, the mayor put up a brief explanation of his reversal on Medium.com early Friday entitled “Our Legal Bills.”
He revealed that “after giving this a great deal of thought,” he’s decided the city will pay $2 million for legal work “tied to my government service.”
Another $300,000 in legal work he said is related to his non-governmental service will come from private donors via an as-yet-to-be created legal defense fund.
From 2016 through March, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney, the Manhattan District Attorney and the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics investigated de Blasio’s fund-raising activities.
On March 16 the U.S. Attorney and DA both announced they had closed their investigations without finding evidence of criminal culpability against de Blasio or his aides.
Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim, however, made clear that he did find evidence that de Blasio and his aides “solicited donations from individuals who sought official favors from the City.” In turn, Kim noted, “the mayor made or directed inquiries to relevant City agencies on behalf of those donors.”
De Blasio raised $4.3 million for a nonprofit Campaign For One New York that promoted his causes. The News found at least $3 million came from entities seeking favors from City Hall.
Mayor Bill de Blasio broke state law when he and his subordinates steered money towards Democratic state senate campaigns — but he can't be charged with a crime because his lawyer said it was OK, according to the Manhattan District Attorney's office.
"After an extensive investigation, notwithstanding the [Board of Elections'] view that the conduct here may have violated the Election Law, this office has determined that the parties involved cannot be appropriately prosecuted, given their reliance on the advice of counsel," DA Cyrus Vance.
The U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan also concluded an investigation into the mayor's fundraising and determined on Thursday that no criminal charges would be brought.
Well that pretty much ends our chances of not having the Dope from Park Slope around for another 4 years. Paul Massey spoke with the Tribune recently, but he's running as a Republican in a Democratic town.
Directly hit up for big-dollar donations by Mayor de Blasio and his associates, the owner of a movie and TV production services company complied for fear that her business would be crippled if she failed to raise money for the mayor’s causes, her husband told the Daily News.
“There was never a threat or anything, but if your boss says you gotta do it, you gotta play ball,” lawyer John Ciafone said of his wife Gina Argento, the power behind Broadway Stages in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
“He’s asked her (for money) and then his minions asked her and Broadway Stages.”
The requests paid off — Argento raised $167,000 for the mayor and his causes, including writing four checks totaling $70,000 from herself and her companies.
“Here’s their concern, which is why they have to play the game of giving,” he said of Broadway Stages. “In the film industry, you have to take over parking on the block for the filming. At different times it was difficult to film because the mayor’s office would arbitrarily issue hot spots.”
He described the “hot spots” as areas “where you can’t film in that area.”
“They get complaints, they say ‘We’ve been oversaturated with complaints. We want a freeze.’ That was done in Long Island City, parts of Brooklyn, Greenpoint. Specifically Broadway Stages, they were given hot spots right outside of where they’re located. They had hot spots right outside their building. No explanation. It’s their discretion. It is what it is,” he said.
Ciafone said if the mayor’s office denied a permit, there was no recourse.
“There’s not much you can do about it. It’s up to the discretion of the mayor's office of film where they’re going to instill those hot spots,” he said. “For TV or movie productions, it can be devastating. Suppose you’re filming and you want the flavor of a brownstone neighborhood or you want the flavor of New York City skyscrapers?”
And then there's the stop work order that de Blasio allegedly had lifted for another of his donor pals.
Either Mayor de Blasio thinks Republicans are progressives — or he’s one lousy liar.
To answer charges he was selling City Hall access (at least) for donations to his shady Campaign for One New York, de Blasio said on NY1 last month, “We sought donations from people who had historically given to . . . progressive causes.”
Oops: Turns out, “more than a dozen” CONY givers had funneled hefty sums to conservative groups and candidates, like Donald Trump and Chris Christie, Politico New York reported Tuesday.
Stanley Chera’s real-estate firm, Crown Acquisitions, forked over $20,000 to CONY in 2015. Yet Chera also gave $30,000 to super PACs backing Christie and $50,000 to Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee. Chera’s now on Trump’s transition team. Is he a “progressive”?
Developer George Klein sent $50,000 to CONY. Yet he also pumped $216,600 to the RNC and $125,000 to a group backing Jeb Bush — who bashed de Blasio’s pre-K expansion, the original raison d’être for CONY.
Businessman John Catsimatidis ponied up $20,000 for CONY — the year after running for mayor in the GOP primary.
The Daily News undertook a comprehensive examination of the mayor’s fund-raising tactics, interviewing officials, lobbyists and donors, as well as reviewing thousands of pages of records to determine who made donations, how they came to make their donations, their possible motivation for giving and what, if anything, they got from de Blasio.
Collectively, the findings point to a concerted City Hall effort to target those doing business with the city for checks far in excess of routine campaign donations.
Investigators looking at de Blasio’s fund-raising tactics have found evidence that donors expected something from City Hall in return for their generosity.
All aboard the mayor’s money train, a planned streetcar from Brooklyn to Queens that appears to have triggered developers with projects along the route to donate big money to his favorite causes.
First came the push to get Mayor de Blasio to back the $2.5 billion taxpayer-supported streetcar running from Sunset Park, Brooklyn, to Astoria, Queens. Supporters call it the Brooklyn Queens Connector, or BQX.
Then came the checks from seven developers, totaling $245,000, to support de Blasio’s favorite causes. The developers sent the checks to the mayor’s nonprofit Campaign for One New York.
Then came the mayor’s announcement, in his State of the City address in February, that the city would go full steam ahead with the 16-mile trolley line.
Shortly after de Blasio took office in January 2014, chief fund-raiser Ross Offinger drew up a list of business and real estate leaders from whom he planned to solicit “support” for the mayor’s newly formed Campaign for One New York.
The City Council is poised to make changes to the city's campaign finance system, including regulating nonprofit groups started by elected officials. But the Council is also preparing to consider legislation that some advocates say only benefits the lawmakers themselves. NY1's Courtney Gross filed the following report.
The City Council is already looking ahead to next year's municipal election.
Late Thursday, it released details of 14 bills to overhaul the city's campaign finance system.
One prohibits large donations from people who do business with the city to nonprofit groups founded by elected officials.
It is a clear reprimand of the mayor's now-defunct group, The Campaign for One New York, which raised thousands of dollars from people who had city contracts. The group is now the subject of a federal investigation.
"The Campaign For One New York obviously raised concerns for a lot of us, but it was operating within the law. So we want to correct the law," said City Councilman Daniel Garodnick of Manhattan.
The other bills change how the city's Campaign Finance Board oversees elections and how elected officials themselves can spend campaign cash.
"I think what we have is a package of really sensible legislation," said City Councilman Brad Lander of Brooklyn.
For instance, one bill would allow elected officials to spend campaign money on "expenditures to facilitate, support or otherwise assist in the execution or performance of the duties of public office."
"That lets you use those resources for public purposes like food at community planning and public meetings," Lander said.
Advocates have questioned whether this opens the door to more freewheeling spending reminiscent of Albany.
A federal investigation into Mayor Bill de Blasio’s campaign fund-raising has zeroed in on whether donations were exchanged for beneficial city action in about a half-dozen cases, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry.
The matters under scrutiny, the people said, involve, among others, a company whose soundstages are used to film television shows such as “The Good Wife” and “Blue Bloods” that wanted to expand its operations, and that depends on city permits; those connected to a lucrative development deal on the site of a former hospital that needed city approvals; a popular restaurant and wedding site that was negotiating a new lease with the city; and a garbage bag company seeking a city contract.
Some of the earliest and most generous donors to the Campaign for One New York are among those whose contributions — along with their actions and those of the mayor and members of his administration and campaign staff — are under scrutiny, several people with knowledge of the inquiry said.
The first two donations to the group, made on Jan. 24, 2014, just weeks after Mr. de Blasio was sworn in, were for $25,000 each and came from Broadway Stages, the soundstage company seeking to expand, and the company’s president, Gina Argento.
By then, Ms. Argento and her company were well known to the mayor. She was the second-largest bundler of contributions for his 2013 run — city records show she brought in over $100,000 for the campaign and transition — and even spent $250 to rent the costumes that Mr. de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, wore at a 2014 Halloween party for children at Gracie Mansion. (The company said it also paid for costumes for more than 100 children from homeless shelters who attended the party.)
One of Ms. Argento’s companies also gave $10,000 to the Putnam County Democratic Committee in October 2014, when the mayor was urging his donors to support Democratic efforts to wrest control of the State Senate.
Broadway Stages also gave $35,000 to the Mayor’s Fund to Advance NYC, a charity that is led by Ms. McCray. Ms. Argento served on the group’s advisory board until July.
John J. Ciafone, a lawyer who is married to Ms. Argento and represents her and Broadway Stages, would not confirm the existence of a federal inquiry, but said that neither she nor the company had engaged in wrongdoing. Neither, he said, had sought help from the administration for Broadway Stages’ expansion plans, which include new soundstages in Brooklyn and on Staten Island, in exchange for its contributions.
“Broadway Stages and Gina Argento has not gotten a penny from the city for any of these projects — not a penny!” he said.
Mr. Ciafone suggested that his wife and the company had been pressured to donate. Their business, he said, relied directly on the discretion of the mayor’s office, which issues film permits from the film commissioner.
“They put a lot of pressure on people like Broadway Stages and I’m sure the other film people to give money to the mayor, to give money to C.O.N.Y.,” he said, referring to the mayor’s nonprofit.
Mr. Ciafone said there could be “repercussions in terms of not contributing,” adding, “People don’t understand that.”
Mr. Ciafone said the pressure had not come from Mr. de Blasio himself, but rather “from several people — fund-raisers, staff fund-raisers, several people on behalf of the mayor” whom he could not name.
He also denied suggestions that Ms. Argento had engaged in a so-called straw donor scheme, saying Mr. de Blasio’s campaign had attributed donors to her whom he said she had not solicited.
Mayor de Blasio claimed Friday that his memory is fuzzy when it comes to the call he got from shady donor Jona Rechnitz urging him to appoint a retired NYPD official as head of the city’s Office of Emergency Management.
Asked whether he took the phone call from the Brooklyn developer at the center of the NYPD’s corruption scandal, Hizzoner praised OEM Commissioner Joe Esposito and insisted he couldn’t remember the conversation.
Earlier Friday, he went on a rant about a Post report that said he had given Esposito the $220,000-a-year job after Rechnitz’s call.
“How about we ask the question the right way? How did Joe Esposito become commissioner?” he told WNYC host Brian Lehrer.
“Not because some guy who I have no respect for his opinion offered his opinion. I don’t even remember him doing that. Because [Esposito] was a highly qualified person, and he’s done a fantastic job. Why is this mysterious?”
He called the report “ludicrous.”
The Post revealed Wednesday that Rechnitz, a cooperating witness in the NYPD scandal, made a call on his cellphone from the office of then-Chief of Department Philip Banks to de Blasio asking that Banks’ predecessor, Esposito, get the gig to run OEM.
Rechnitz later bragged to his associates that “I’ve got the mayor on lockdown,” sources said.
He donated $50,000 to de Blasio’s now-shuttered Campaign for One New York charity and gave him $9,900 for his 2013 mayoral bid.
A judge in Albany has ordered Mayor Bill de Blasio’s political nonprofit to comply with a subpoena from a state ethics panel, putting a damper on the mayor’s widening effort to prevent the disclosure of certain communications that he deems privileged.
The decision by Justice Denise A. Hartman of State Supreme Court involved an investigation by the Joint Commission on Public Ethics into whether the nonprofit, the Campaign for One New York, violated state regulations by failing to register in 2015 as a lobbyist.
The two parties argued their positions in court in July, the first public court battle to emerge from various state and federal investigations into the mayor’s fund-raising and political activities.
The ruling, issued last week but not received by the parties until Monday, comes as Mr. de Blasio is also fighting in State Supreme Court in Manhattan to keep emails and text messages between City Hall and a small number of outside advisers — some of whom played central roles in the political nonprofit before it closed down this year — from being disclosed to reporters.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara is looking into Mayor de Blasio’s involvement in the sale of Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, the Daily News has learned.
Bharara's office recently issued a subpoena to the State University of New York, which had owned the hospital, seeking all communications between the university system and City Hall regarding the sale of LICH dating to Jan. 2, 2014, when de Blasio took office, said two sources familiar with the matter.
One source close to SUNY confirmed the subpoena and said “the clear target seems to be de Blasio.” But the specifics of what Bharara is looking into were unclear.
The subpoena specifically seeks emails and other communication from de Blasio and top aides Tony Shorris, Emma Wolfe, Dominic Williams, Avi Fink and Henry Berger, the two sources said.
It also seeks all communication regarding the hospital dating to 2013 between SUNY and de Blasio’s campaign and his fundraiser Ross Offinger, as well as various groups tied to the mayor such as the Campaign For One New York, UPKNYC, and United for Affordable NYC, the sources said.
The subpoena demands emails and other communication between SUNY and de Blasio from 2013, when he was the city’s public advocate, they said.
Companies owned by two big contributors de Blasio appointed to VIP slots had serious integrity issues before the mayor rewarded them for their money-raising, a Daily News review has found.
One co-owned a company the city had declared lacked “good character, honesty and integrity,” while the other owed the city $1.2 million in lease payments and fees.
Not a problem. The mayor appointed both to several advisory boards.
The two showed up on an internal spreadsheet of top donors, lobbyists and other New York power players up for mayoral appointments to unpaid boards and commissions revealed by the Daily News Monday.
Businesswoman Gina Argento made the list after raising $97,780 for the mayor through bundled checks from friends and employees of her firm, Broadway Stage.
And in January 2014, she was first in line to write checks totaling $50,000 for the Campaign for One New York, the fund de Blasio set up to support his causes.
Most of Argento’s checks to de Blasio started arriving Oct. 1, 2013 — a month before he was elected and not long after the city Business Integrity Commission found a firm she co-owned, Luna Lighting Inc., “lacks good character, honesty and integrity.”
In May 2013, the commission rejected Luna’s request for a waste hauling license on two grounds: Luna had paid an $18,000 fine after admitting it repeatedly illegally hauled construction debris and ignored city demands to pay off a $620,000 IRS tax lien.
A little over a year later, de Blasio put Argento on his Fund for the Advancement of New York City, a nonprofit run by his wife, Chirlane McCray, that raises private funds for city programs.
And he put her on his committee to try to lure the Democratic National Convention to Brooklyn, and the city’s Workforce Investment Board, which advises the city on workforce issues and oversaw a $65.5 million budget in 2014.
It’s unclear whether Argento paid the back taxes. She did not return repeat calls seeking comment.
On Tuesday, mayoral spokesman Peter Kadushan declined to address the integrity panel’s license rejection, stating only that Argento was put on the Workforce Board “because of her experience in the film and television industry and years as a small-business owner who has created local jobs.”
Ok. I exposed this 2 1/2 years ago, so what took the Daily News so long to figure this out? Have they also figured out that she's married to John Ciafone of ridiculous canopy fame?
Mayor de Blasio's Campaign for One New York fund hit a trifecta on May 27, 2015 — courtesy of lobbyist extraordinaire James Capalino.
The group first received a $10,000 check from Capalino. That same day, identical checks arrived from two of the lobbyist’s deep-pocketed clients, RAL Development and Cipriani USA, for a total of $30,000.
And the very next day, Capalino was on the phone with the man himself — Mayor de Blasio.
Not bad for a guy who, as a lobbyist doing business with the city, is barred from giving more than $400 to a candidate per election.
The mayor’s website and Capalino insist the phone chat concerned a proposed (and ultimately failed) helicopter ban, and Capalino says donations to the mayor’s cause never came up.
Whether anything else came up remains a mystery as City Hall refuses to say whether notes of these lobbying chats exist.
Two former advisers to Mayor Bill de Blasio who left City Hall for a political consulting firm were granted permission to continue working with the mayor on behalf of his nonprofit, which is now under federal investigation, despite a one-year ban on doing so, DNAinfo New York has learned.
Rebecca Katz, a special adviser to de Blasio, left in April 2015 to work for Hilltop Public Solutions. Hayley Prim, a policy analyst for Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, left City Hall in March 2015, also to join Hilltop.
They received a June 10, 2015, Conflict of Interests Board waiver to work for the Campaign for One New York, de Blasio's nonprofit focused on promoting his political agenda, before the city's one-year prohibition expired.
Good government groups and political experts say the arrangement shows how easily paid consultants and advisers move in and out of de Blasio's City Hall.
Under pressure from numerous corruption investigations, the mayor sought out a friendly audience, the Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, to blame his troubles on his politics enemies, CBS2’s Marcia Kramer reports.
“Now, brothers and sisters, guess what… when you do something different, opposition emerges. The voices of the status quo find many, many ways to undermine progress to stand in the way of progress,” he said.
The mayor apparently thinks Governor Andrew Cuomo is one of those standing in the way of progress. He had his lawyer, Laurence Laufer, send a scathing letter to the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics saying team de Blasio will no longer cooperate with its probe into the mayor’s non-profit and fundraising arm, the campaign for One New York. Laufer implies Cuomo is somehow pulling the strings.
He's under investigation by the Manhattan D.A. and U.S. Attorney, but the state investigation is a witch hunt. Okay...
It was one of the first things Bill de Blasio did when he became mayor.
Eight days into his administration, he got a letter from the city's Conflicts of Interest Board, the agency overseeing ethical conduct for local elected officials. It granted the mayor approval to fundraise for his newly established nonprofit group that was pushing his agenda, the Campaign for One New York.
Of course, there was a catch. De Blasio could not solicit donations for that nonprofit from "anyone with a matter pending or about to be pending’" before the city. The letter went on to say quote: “It is the Board’s conclusion that, as applied to the mayor, the 'agency' referred to is the entire executive branch…”
So more than two years later, NY1 examined all of the donations to the Campaign for One New York, which is now the subject of a federal investigation. We found that at least 60 donations came from an entity that had business with the city, or a company that was directly lobbying the city or was a union with a city contract.
Some of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s closest political allies have received subpoenas as part of coordinated federal and state investigations into his fundraising activities, people familiar with the matter said.
City Hall has also been subpoenaed and will cooperate fully, but Mr. de Blasio “has not been personally served,” Maya Wiley, counsel to the mayor, said Wednesday night.
The allies who received subpoenas include Emma Wolfe, the mayor’s director of intergovernmental affairs and his chief political aide; Ross Offinger, his top fundraiser; and BerlinRosen, a consulting firm that works on the mayor’s political campaigns and was co-founded by Jonathan Rosen, a top adviser to Mr. de Blasio.
Other political consultants and firms close to the mayor have also gotten subpoenas, the people said.
Neither the mayor nor his allies have been accused of any wrongdoing. A spokeswoman for the mayor’s office said Ms. Wolfe’s integrity shouldn’t be questioned and that she had followed all laws. Mr. Offinger declined to comment through a spokesman.
Mr. Rosen said, “We have acted appropriately and in accordance with the law at all times.”
The subpoenas are seeking documents related to the mayor’s unsuccessful effort in 2014 to bring the state Senate under Democratic control and fundraising for the Campaign for One New York, a nonprofit set up by Mr. de Blasio’s allies to advance the mayor’s agenda, the people said.
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