"Didn't I just say, speak with my counsel?"
The mayor's many lawyers will allegedly answer all your questions, because he wont #99
Reporters gathered again in City Hall’s rotunda on Tuesday for our weekly off-topic circus, anticipating any news at all about the federal investigations or anything else happening in New York City. Instead of answers to our questions we just heard the name “Vito” a lot.
Vito is Vito Pitta, the mayor’s campaign lawyer — not to be confused with Alex Spiro, the mayor’s lawyer for his federal investigation (and, previously, on his sexual assault civil case.) There’s also the lawyers who work for the mayor — City Hall’s chief counsel and the corporation counsel. Some of the deputy mayors are technically lawyers. Sometimes the mayor’s spokesperson acts like he’s a lawyer (he isn’t.) And all seem to be good at deflecting when we just have simple questions like I don't know if you have a favorite six-digit combo in reference to his phone passcode, which even the feds can’t crack.
Question: You can't remember what your digits were?
Mayor Adams: Didn't I just say, speak with my counsel? Counsel.
I predict there will be many more answers like that in the future, when the mayor isn’t scolding us for asking questions at the same time (Hint to his communications office: This is something you created by limiting when he takes off-topic questions.)
There were not any further arrests or indictments this week but there was still bad news for the mayor. His fundraising seems to be lagging, for both his campaign and his legal defense fund. The mayor said we shouldn’t worry about stalled fundraising on his legal defense fund. Don’t worry, I’m not. I asked if you were!
My colleague Greg Smith reminds us that Bill de Blasio still hasn’t paid his lawyers, so maybe the mayor can just do that (I asked Thursday and he said he always pays his bills.)
Another thing the mayor does not want to talk about honestly is why people keep leaving his administration. The city’s health commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, announced previously he’d leave at the end of the year; this week, he said he’s actually leaving today. Asked on PIX 11 this week if it has anything to do with the current investigations, Vasan said “people say whatever they want I think it’s silly season in many ways.” Silly season! There’s a lot of stuff that’s silly but it’s not reporters asking genuine questions (speaking of silly things, why does the health department spokesperson tweet like an AI chatbot, sharing a press release from 2021?)
Here is one thing that isn’t silly: the six ballot questions you’ll see when you go vote. My colleagues wrote a guide to each one, so please read up:
One, two, three, four, five, six
Other interesting stories
→ “The report flagged two such nonprofits with striking executive pay; CAMBA Inc. where president Joanne Oplustil earned more than $750,000 in fiscal year 2022, and the Acacia Network where president Raul Russi took in $935,391 that fiscal year. [THE CITY]
→ More than $400,000 is missing from the Bronx Democratic party’s disclosures [NY FOCUS]
→ Would you bite a cop? [THE CITY]
→ I enjoyed these Modern Love 20th anniversary stories from the New York Times. “Loving — and writing about love — involves choice. The choice to create meaning from raw experience. The choice to be bold and vulnerable, to reach outside yourself, to try to communicate and commune.”
→ And this one: “… you should strive to be honest, generous, open-minded, curious, funny and humble both in writing and in love.”
→ This week’s Grub Street Diet was the saddest one I’ve ever read [GRUBSTREET]
→ I was part of a panel this week about THE CITY’s reporting on Mayor Adams. You can read more and watch here.
🎧LISTEN🎧
᭵ This week’s FAQ reviews were “a little long” and “you think you’re stressed???” [FAQ]
᭵ “That’s My Bitch” by Saso feat AKA The Darknight
᭵ I enjoyed learning about the Boar’s Head family drama [THE JOURNAL]
Thanks for reading!