Randy Mastro is more than qualified to be NYC’s top lawyer

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Talk about bigots: Most of the City Council signed a letter vowing to block confirmation of Randy Mastro if Mayor Adams indeed chooses him as the next corporation counsel — seemingly, simply because Randy Mastro served as chief of staff and deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani.

As the city’s top lawyer, Mastro would lead the Law Department and provide legal counsel to the Adams administration — roles he’s eminently qualified for.

Bizarrely, the letter from the Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus cites “his track record representing dubious clients, which has included bringing numerous lawsuits against the City of New York.”

Huh? Tish James, now state attorney general and popular with the same council members, sued the city all the time while serving as public advocate.

As for dubious clients: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand was once mainly a lawyer for tobacco companies.

Heck, Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán boasts of her work as a public defender, which necessarily requires defending at least a few horrific clients, because giving criminal defendants legal representation is a hallmark of the American justice system.

Yet Cabán & Co. now want to pick-and-choose which clients are worthy of legal defense from a gifted attorney — simply because that lawyer is Randy Mastro.

Among Mastro’s “sins” is providing legal representation to:

  • Oil giant Chevron in a dispute with the government of Ecuador over a $9.5 billion judgment involving 30,000 farmers and indigenous people — in a case where US courts eventually found that judgment to be the product of fraud and outright racketeering.
  • A group of landlords who challenged the city’s rent laws.
  • An Upper West Side group who sought to evict a group of homeless men from the Lucerne Hotel amid the COVID pandemic.
  • Madison Square Garden against charges of wrongfully banning attorneys from MSG events.

And, yes, Mastro’s investigation of then-Jersey Gov. Chris Christie cleared him of any wrongdoing in the Bridgegate scandal — but so did the Obama Justice Department.

Look: Randy Mastro is an ex-federal prosecutor, a respected public servant and a renowned litigator with a record of fighting for causes even City Council lefties see as just.

His pro bono work includes:

  • Representing Black Lives Matter demonstrators over the mid-2020 clearing of DC’s Lafayette Park in advance of a visit by then-President Donald Trump for a photo-op in mid-2020.
  • Defeating then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s effort to impose onerous donor-disclosure requirements on New York’s “good government” groups.
  • Challenging the city’s term-limits-extension legislation and campaign-finance-law violations.
  • Successfully advocating for the families of fallen 9/11 firefighter heroes entitled to millions in donations raised by the union.

Hmm: Maybe the council’s true, secret gripe is that Mastro was the Giuliani aide who threw PLO terror leader Yasser Arafat out of a city-sponsored concert at Lincoln Center in 1995?

Mastro is an excellent choice with sterling credentials; Mayor Adams is right to want a broad team in City Hall, despite the lefties’ hyperpartisan hysteria.



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