De Blasio’s Nonprofit Stops Cooperating With Ethics Probe

A nonprofit group created to promote the political agenda of Mayor Bill de Blasio will no longer cooperate with a state ethics probe because it has become a “blatantly political exercise,” the group’s lawyer said in a letter Friday to investigators.

Campaign for One New York attorney Laurence Laufer says Joint Commission on Public Ethics investigators have overreached by seeking records beyond whether the group engaged in prohibited lobbying, including fundraising.

Laufer said the group has responded for a year to the commission’s requests related to lobbying.

“We have now reached a new phase that is unjustified under the law and unsupported by the facts,” he wrote, arguing the probe “has obviously become a blatantly political exercise by an agency whose very independence is deeply in question.”

He said the group will continue to cooperate with federal and state prosecutors.

The commission’s executive director, Seth Agata, said it is operating within its jurisdiction and opened an investigation after good-government groups and the media raised questions.

“These are activities that were brought to our attention, and we have a legal obligation to look into the extent that such activities constitute lobbying,” he said.

De Blasio, on Friday on his first edition of the weekly “Ask the Mayor,” said he would continue to cooperate with various investigations.

“We want to see these issues examined, and we want answers, and we want to be done as quickly as possible,” he said.

This article appeared in print on page 4 of the May 9th, 2016 edition of Hamodia.