After Mayor de Blasio built a velvet-roped VIP lounge for big-bucks City Hall favor-seekers, he nervily trumpeted his Campaign for One New York as a force fighting the corruptions of big money in politics.
So, New Yorkers, just wait to hear how de Blasio explains an elaborate money-grabbing scheme to help Democrats seize control of the state Senate — scathingly described by the state’s top election enforcer as a criminal racket calculated to evade campaign funding limits.
DE BLASIO GAMED DONATION LIMITS, HID NAMES: BOARD OF ELECTIONS
Progressive intentions in the up-is-down world of Bill de Blasio absolve all sins — but they can’t wash away threatening investigations by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance and U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.
Recommending prosecution for “willful and flagrant” violations of state law, Board of Elections enforcement counsel Risa Sugarman in a January memo described in detail how de Blasio’s top political staff maneuvered — with his participation — to pump contributions in excess of legal limits into three upstate races.
Wins by embattled Democratic incumbents, Cecelia Tkaczyk and Terry Gipson, as well as by insurgent Justin Wagner, could have transferred control of the Republican-held state Senate, deemed by the mayor as unmovably hostile to his progressive agenda.
So he personally reminded big New York City campaign donors, at a Sept. 2014 breakfast.
Being no dummy, the mayor then scurried out of the room to let his campaign staff pitch for donations for precincts far away.
EXCLUSIVE: KEY DE BLASIO DONOR NYCLASS SUBPOENAED
Team de Blasio then funneled the cash through the Democratic County committees of Putnam and Ulster counties, which promptly turned over $970,000 to the three campaigns — much of it from developers and unions with business before the mayor. The suddenly interested givers made contributions ranging from $10,000 to the max $102,300.
Other donations went to the statewide Senate Democratic Campaign Committee and on to the campaigns.
Had the donors contributed directly to the candidates, they would have been limited to contributions of $10,300 to each.
Sugarman described the effort to evade the campaign contribution limits by de Blasio’s operatives as “coordinated at every level and down to minute detail” — including a meeting between Wagner, top de Blasio political aide Emma Wolfe and UFT president Michael Mulgrew.
Funneling donors’ dollars to campaigns through party committees is nothing new — as de Blasio is likely to feebly say.
But concocting a plot to evade the law, if that’s what prosecutors find de Blasio or his associates did, is far worse than merely odiferous conduct.
Credibly, Sugarman has, in effect, portrayed de Blasio as the head of a political crime family. Rest assured that no one ever made such a damning statement about de Blasio’s hero Fiorello LaGuardia or any other mayor between then and now.
