NYT: De Blasio Used Personal Email, Sought Favors for Donor

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (AP Photo)

By Greg Richter
NEWSMAX

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and four aides used personal email accounts to conduct government business and the mayor urged city employees to help his donors, The New York Times reported.

The Times used the New York state’s Freedom of Information Law to obtain a copy of a document detailing the actions by the city’s Department of Investigation.

According to the document, de Blasio’s personal email address showed up in the conducting of city business 1,850 times. Many of those uses violate the city’s guidelines for email use, the Times reported.

The document relates to a federal investigation into the mayor’s fundraising.

Though prosecutors earlier this year announced they would not pursue charges against de Blasio or his aides in the case, acting U.S. attorney Joon H. Kim said he had issues with the mayor’s conduct, citing “several circumstances in which Mayor de Blasio and others acting on his behalf solicited donations from individuals who sought official favors from the city, after which the mayor made or directed inquiries to relevant city agencies on behalf of those donors.”

The federal probe revolved around de Blasio’s attempts to help campaign donor Harendra Singh, owner of a wedding venue on land leased from the city. According to the July 7 document obtained by the Times, de Blasio called Stacey Cumberbatch, who heads the agency overseeing city leases, to help Singh. That contact, the document said, “was the first and only time that the mayor ever called her directly.”

Several members of the agency were urged by de Blasio’s staff to “resolve this matter” because Singh was “a friend of the mayor.”

The part of the memo discussing email use lists only the number of times personal addresses appear, the Times said, and did not say whether those numbers referred to emails that were sent, received or in which the person listed was copied.

Here’s the breakdown of the numbers:

• De Blasio: 1,850.
• Emma Wolfe, director of intergovernmental affairs: 1,296.
• Henry Berger, special counsel to the mayor: 34.
• Anthony Shorris, first deputy mayor: 682.
• Dominic Williams, Shorris’ chief of staff: 579.

Wolfe’s emails from her personal account end with a line saying it is her private account and official business should be directed to her city email address, the Times reported.

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http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/the-new-york-times-bill-de-blasio-email-donor/2017/08/22/id/809172/