Eric Adams’ top lawyer pick faces backlash in City Council

NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to appoint controversial attorney Randy Mastro, who worked in Rudy Giuliani’s City Hall, as the city’s top lawyer faces headwinds in the City Council.

There’s widespread distaste for Mastro within the legislative body —which has charter-mandated oversight of any mayor’s candidate to run the Law Department — according to conversations with eight members.

News of Mastro’s imminent hiring broke Tuesday night in the New York Times, and lawmakers immediately began grumbling.

“New Yorkers did not elect the most progressive, diverse Democratic supermajority in Council history to rubber stamp a return to the Giuliani era,” progressive Council Member Tiffany Cabán, a lawyer, told POLITICO in a statement. “Our city’s top lawyer should be a principled champion of justice, not a far-right wing pal of sleazy crooks like Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, and billionaire real estate magnates. No way in hell I vote to confirm Randy Mastro.”

He would replace Corporation Counsel Sylvia Hinds-Radix, who plans to step down. Mastro first gained political notoriety as a deputy mayor under the Republican Giuliani. And that’s just one line in his resume raising eyebrows of the overwhelmingly Democratic, largely progressive City Council.

“They’ve put themselves in a very stupid position where it’s fair to question whether they would have the votes at this very moment,” said a person who has spoken to council members over the last day since news of Mastro’s appointment broke, who was granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations. “You’ve chosen someone who has raised real questions.”

Mastro worked for Republican former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on the “Bridgegate” scandal, oil giant Chevron and an Upper West Side group that tried to get homeless New Yorkers out of the Lucerne Hotel amid the Covid pandemic.

The Bridgegate case alone was “a blatant abuse of power” and Mastro’s work on that alone is “disqualifying,” said Council Member Shekar Krishnan, another progressive lawyer. “I cannot support Mr. Mastro’s nomination for this position and I would expect other colleagues will have serious concerns as well.”

Mastro didn’t respond to a request for comment. Adams spokesperson Fabien Levy declined to confirm City Hall was hiring Mastro, or discuss how the administration intends to win support for the pick.

“No appointment is confirmed until, and if, it is announced, but if there was an appointment, of course we’d work collaboratively with our partners across the hall,” he said, referring to the council.

Mastro has earned a reputation as an aggressive litigator, and one person close to the mayor suggested the council should be happy with a “bulldog” representing the city government.

If confirmed as the administration’s corporation counsel, Mastro would represent the city as a whole, not just the mayor. But the council doesn’t always agree with the executive on legal matters. The lawmakers in February joined a lawsuit against the city — represented by the corporation counsel — over Adams declining to implement a package of laws expanding eligibility for housing vouchers, for instance.

Adams is personally facing an array of legal challenges, including a federal investigation into Turkish influence, and a 30-year-old claim of sexual assault and professional retaliation, where the Law Department is representing him. Adams has denied all wrongdoing.

Mastro’s potential appointment comes at a moment of heightened tension between the council and the mayor.

In January, Adams vetoed a pair of bills opposed by law enforcement officers, but the council then overrode his veto. This month, the mayor’s new policy requiring elected officials to fill out an online form to gain access to agency leaders has earned outrage from the legislative body. And a particularly strained budget negotiation is ongoing through June.

In another blow to his standing among the majority of the council, Mastro also represents the state of New Jersey in its case trying to block congestion pricing from taking effect — a policy the mayor himself has hesitantly accepted.

That, however, has earned him at least one big fan: Republican Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli.

“I’ll be throwing him a fife and drum corp parade on his first day marching into City Hall,” he said in an interview. “I want more people who think like me on congestion pricing in City Hall.”