Taxpayers will have to wait until after the election to find out how much Mayor de Blasio’s legal bills will cost them. Even though federal and state probes…
Taxpayers will have to wait until after the election to find out how much Mayor de Blasio’s legal bills will cost them.
Even though federal and state probes of de Blasio’s fundraising practices were closed with no charges files back in March, city officials claim more than seven months later that they’re still calculating the final tab.
Asked to provide a tally to the public on Friday, de Blasio told reporters, “I’m sure our legal team at the Law Department can get an answer.”
But when asked, a Law Department spokesman deferred to mayoral spokesman Eric Phillips, who said, “The mayor said we’d provide them. We’ll provide them when they’re complete, as we’ve always said.”
Originally, the mayor said he’d pay his own legal bills and charge taxpayers solely to defend mayoral staffers who were investigated as part of their official duties in state and federal probes of the mayor’s fundraising practices.
City Hall has earmarked at least $11.6 million just for that tab alone.
But in June — after the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board said any legal defense fund set up by the mayor would have to adhere to the city’s strict campaign donation limits — de Blasio suddenly changed his mind and decided to stick taxpayers with his legal bills as well.
He estimated those charges to be around $2 million, but has yet to provide any formal figures since.
The mayor also said at the time that he’d pay for a small portion of his bills that were entirely political in nature — which he estimated would cost around $300,000.
