De Blasio dodges questions on his NYPD security detail, won’t share ruling by Conflicts of Interest Board
Mayor de Blasio on Wednesday refused to make public a ruling that he repay $320,000 in expenses racked up by his NYPD security detail during his failed 2020 presidential bid — his latest defense against a probe that found he misused the protective unit.
De Blasio’s decision against full transparency came just days after the city Department of Investigation released a bombshell report that revealed he misused his security detail and that the head of that detail, Howard Redmond, allegedly destroyed evidence and obstructed the agency’s probe into the elite unit.
Redmond’s conduct has been referred by DOI to the Manhattan district attorney’s office as a possible criminal matter.
A separate agency, the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, determined that Hizzoner should repay the city for expenses it viewed as outside the security detail’s purview — specifically pointing to its work on de Blasio’s now-kaput presidential ambitions, which took him to Iowa and South Carolina.
But Conflicts of Interest Board rulings are kept confidential unless the subject of its determination decides to go public. On Wednesday, the mayor opted against that.
De Blasio was twice asked why he hasn’t released the original May 2019 Conflicts of Interest Board ruling that found he should reimburse the city for the $320,000 it cost to bring his security detail along with him on the campaign trail. And twice, he refused to offer an explanation — even though he did make public his appeal of the ruling, which was filed this past July.
“Everything was determined by the NYPD, and I followed that guidance,” he told reporters Wednesday at his daily press briefing. “What we got from the [Conflicts of Interest Board] suggested something very, very different.”
De Blasio argued that there wasn’t a “methodology” in place to follow up with the board’s decision that he repay more than a quarter-million dollars in expenses that, from its perspective, the mayor has so far managed to foist off on taxpayers.
“There’s not a procedure historically because mayors and their families were protected in anything and everything they did. That was the way it was done,” he said. “There wasn’t a methodology for following up on it. We sent the appeal letter to say this is the history, this is what we think makes sense.”
De Blasio, however, would not explain why it took him more than two years after the Conflicts of Interest Board’s initial ruling to lodge his appeal.
“It was important to put in the appeal to get to a clearer, ultimate answer,” de Blasio said in response to a followup question.
But when asked about whether he thought it would be helpful to give the public a clearer perspective by releasing the board’s original determination, Hizzoner suggested that wouldn’t be necessary.
“The previous back and forth is not what we’re going to be releasing,” he said when asked about it directly. “What we did release was our appeal letter, and that’s the only thing we’re releasing at this point.”
A Conflicts of Interest Board spokesman declined to comment on the matter, citing confidentiality rules.
