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      A Trump Case Awaits the Next Manhattan DA. Who Is the Best Prosecutor for the Job?

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      Some candidates for Manhattan’s district attorney are agents of change who want to cut the police budget. Others are very comfortable with long-established established power networks.During its 20 year run, “Law & Order” cast five different actors in the role of Manhattan district attorney, a rate of turnover that feels like science fiction given that, in reality, four people have been elected to the office in 83 years. For the past 46 of them, the position, one of the most important prosecutorial posts in the country, has been held by two people, each an aristocrat born to a political dynasty: First, Robert M. Morgenthau, son of Henry Morgenthau Jr., who served as treasury secretary under two presidents (and who was himself the son of the United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire); and since 2010, Cy Vance, son of the former secretary of state for whom he is named.In three weeks, Manhattanites will have the opportunity to vote for someone new at a pivotal moment in the history of race and social reform, during a period when leading prosecutors around the country — in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston — have been on the vanguard of the movement to reduce incarceration. The stakes would suggest a certain amount of heat, but engagement with the election has been strikingly low. In a recent poll of likely Democratic voters living in Manhattan, 44 percent said that they did not know whom they would vote for among the eight available D.A. candidates.The contender who has received the most attention is the one who has spent the most money to get it. Tali Farhadian Weinstein, a highly qualified prosecutor, leads the field in two areas: financing, having raised close to $4.5 million, an astonishing sum for a race of this kind, and the elite credentials that often make that possible. A graduate of Yale and Yale Law School, a Rhodes scholar who clerked for Merrick B. Garland and Sandra Day O’Connor, Ms. Farhadian Weinstein has been, among other things, a chief adviser to Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney known for his reform work around bail, juvenile justice and diverting low-level drug offenders from the prison system.With the exception of Elizabeth Crotty, who is running a campaign so traditionally focused on public safety that police unions can’t stop endorsing her, everyone else has produced a platform that lands somewhere along the spectrum of a contemporary progressive mandate. (There is a single Republican candidate, Thomas Kenniff, but Manhattan has not elected a Republican D.A. since Thomas E. Dewey in 1937.)The issue with Ms. Farhadian Weinstein is not that she lacks the sensitivities this particular moment is calling for; rather, she offers no break in the long and dubious tradition of handing the office over to those who live at the top of an intricately knit network of wealth and power, far from the ordinary realities.The wife of hedge-fund manager Boaz Weinstein, with whom she bought a $25.5 million Fifth Avenue apartment formerly belonging to the copper heiress Huguette Clark, Ms. Farhadian Weinstein has raised tens of thousands of dollars from her husband’s friends and colleagues on Wall Street. (Among them is the billionaire Ken Griffin, who built his own stunning relationship to New York real estate when he bought a condominium on Central Park South for $238 million, at the time the most expensive home ever sold in the United States.)Throughout her campaign, Ms. Farhadian Weinstein has argued that none of these connections would impede her judgment, that she would prosecute financial crime fearlessly. When asked in a debate earlier this month about whether she would recuse herself from prosecuting cases involving donors to her campaign, she said that she would not. But what about all the other potential conflicts — and appearances of conflict — that could arise from her position as the spouse of a famous and hugely successful investor? When you elect a gifted lawyer to run an influential office, the hope is that she’ll be available, game in hand, to advise on the biggest and most sensational cases.The chief criticism of the Vance era is that his office kowtowed to the moneyed class over and over. It laid bare the danger that comes from intimacy with the opposition and revealed the high costs of recusal. A decade ago, for instance, when Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a housekeeper in a Midtown hotel, he retained the counsel of Marc Agnifilo. As it happened, the lawyer was married to someone high up in Mr. Vance’s office — the chief of the trial division, who ordinarily would have supervised the case.Given that Karen Friedman Agnifilo had a lot of experience in sex crimes, her involvement would have been invaluable. Instead she was forced to tuck herself away. Eventually the charges against Mr. Strauss-Kahn were dismissed under a case that famously collapsed. During the preceding 18 months, the Agnifilos had found themselves in similarly entangled situations two dozen times.In his acclaimed 2017 book, “The Chickenshit Club,” the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jesse Eisinger begins with the question of how it came to pass that virtually no one was prosecuted in regard to the 2008 financial crisis. He determines that a growing sense of coziness and collusion between the business and legal professions, emergent since the beginning of the current century, have limited both the ability and commitment of prosecutors to tackle corporations and the people who run them. Several years ago, Eric Holder, who has endorsed Ms. Farhadian Weinstein (she worked for him in the Obama Justice Department), briefly embraced the idea that certain banks are “too big to jail.”Tahanie Aboushi, a civil rights lawyer who is essentially a dismantlist, sits at a very different end of the continuum. She is in favor of cutting the budget of the police department by 50 percent, and her antipathy to incarceration extends to a refusal to prosecute a long list of offenses, including harassment in the second degree, which, as Ms. Farhadian Weinstein astutely pointed out in the most recent debate, would include shoving a person on a subway platform out of bias.Even the Five Boro Defenders, a group of lawyers and social justice advocates deeply sympathetic to Ms. Aboushi’s worldview, pointed out in their voting guide that they found it “concerning” that “she frequently lacked a clear understanding or vision” for accomplishing her objectives. Some opposed to Ms. Aboushi’s approach resent her inclusion in a race that they worry could detract from the other leading progressive, Alvin Bragg, the only Black candidate in the field. Nonetheless, Ms. Aboushi has the support of the influential Working Families Party.A native of Harlem, the son of a math teacher and a father who worked in social welfare, Mr. Bragg has a long and impressive résumé, having served as a federal prosecutor under Preet Bharara (who has endorsed him) and in various top positions in the state attorney general’s office. There he oversaw an investigation into the Police Department’s stop-and-frisk program and found that only one-tenth of 1 percent of stops, over a period of three years, resulted in convictions for a violent crime. He also worked to repeal 50-a, the law that shielded the misbehaviors of the police from the public for so long.“The thing about Alvin is that you don’t have to worry about his sincerity as a reformer,” Zephyr Teachout, the legal scholar who challenged Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo from the left in the Democratic primary six years ago. “He has done the work.”Whoever becomes the next D.A. will inherit the case against the Trump Organization and all the major legacy potential that comes along with it. In the eyes of many New Yorkers, Manhattan’s next district attorney will either be the one to finally bring Donald Trump to account — or be remembered as the one who failed to do so. For the moment at least, there is no evidence that anyone running would need to back away from the challenge of that. More

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      A Trump Case Awaits. Who Is the Best Prosecutor for the Job?

      by

      Some candidates for Manhattan’s district attorney are agents of change who want to cut the police budget. Others are very comfortable with long-established established power networks.During its 20 year run, “Law & Order” cast five different actors in the role of Manhattan district attorney, a rate of turnover that feels like science fiction given that, in reality, four people have been elected to the office in 83 years. For the past 46 of them, the position, one of the most important prosecutorial posts in the country, has been held by two people, each an aristocrat born to a political dynasty: First, Robert M. Morgenthau, son of Henry Morgenthau Jr., who served as treasury secretary under two presidents (and who was himself the son of the United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire); and since 2010, Cy Vance, son of the former secretary of state for whom he is named.In three weeks, Manhattanites will have the opportunity to vote for someone new at a pivotal moment in the history of race and social reform, during a period when leading prosecutors around the country — in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston — have been on the vanguard of the movement to reduce incarceration. The stakes would suggest a certain amount of heat, but engagement with the election has been strikingly low. In a recent poll of likely Democratic voters living in Manhattan, 44 percent said that they did not know whom they would vote for among the eight available D.A. candidates.The contender who has received the most attention is the one who has spent the most money to get it. Tali Farhadian Weinstein, a highly qualified prosecutor, leads the field in two areas: financing, having raised close to $4.5 million, an astonishing sum for a race of this kind, and the elite credentials that often make that possible. A graduate of Yale and Yale Law School, a Rhodes scholar who clerked for Merrick B. Garland and Sandra Day O’Connor, Ms. Farhadian Weinstein has been, among other things, a chief adviser to Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney known for his reform work around bail, juvenile justice and diverting low-level drug offenders from the prison system.With the exception of Elizabeth Crotty, who is running a campaign so traditionally focused on public safety that police unions can’t stop endorsing her, everyone else has produced a platform that lands somewhere along the spectrum of a contemporary progressive mandate. (There is a single Republican candidate, Thomas Kenniff, but Manhattan has not elected a Republican D.A. since Thomas E. Dewey in 1937.)The issue with Ms. Farhadian Weinstein is not that she lacks the sensitivities this particular moment is calling for; rather, she offers no break in the long and dubious tradition of handing the office over to those who live at the top of an intricately knit network of wealth and power, far from the ordinary realities.The wife of hedge-fund manager Boaz Weinstein, with whom she bought a $25.5 million Fifth Avenue apartment formerly belonging to the copper heiress Huguette Clark, Ms. Farhadian Weinstein has raised tens of thousands of dollars from her husband’s friends and colleagues on Wall Street. (Among them is the billionaire Ken Griffin, who built his own stunning relationship to New York real estate when he bought a condominium on Central Park South for $238 million, at the time the most expensive home ever sold in the United States.)Throughout her campaign, Ms. Farhadian Weinstein has argued that none of these connections would impede her judgment, that she would prosecute financial crime fearlessly. When asked in a debate earlier this month about potential conflict of interest, she said that she would recuse herself in any instance where she had ties to the accused. But that is a solution to a problem that shouldn’t exist in the first place. When you elect a gifted lawyer to run a hugely influential office, the hope is that she’ll be available, game in hand, to advise on the biggest and most sensational cases.The chief criticism of the Vance era is that his office kowtowed to the moneyed class over and over. It laid bare the danger that comes from intimacy with the opposition and revealed the high costs of recusal. A decade ago, for instance, when Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a housekeeper in a Midtown hotel, he retained the counsel of Marc Agnifilo. As it happened, the lawyer was married to someone high up in Mr. Vance’s office — the chief of the trial division, who ordinarily would have supervised the case.Given that Karen Friedman Agnifilo had a lot of experience in sex crimes, her involvement would have been invaluable. Instead she was forced to tuck herself away. Eventually the charges against Mr. Strauss-Kahn were dismissed under a case that famously collapsed. During the preceding 18 months, the Agnifilos had found themselves in similarly entangled situations two dozen times.In his acclaimed 2017 book, “The Chickenshit Club,” the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jesse Eisinger begins with the question of how it came to pass that virtually no one was prosecuted in regard to the 2008 financial crisis. He determines that a growing sense of coziness and collusion between the business and legal professions, emergent since the beginning of the current century, have limited both the ability and commitment of prosecutors to tackle corporations and the people who run them. Several years ago, Eric Holder, who has endorsed Ms. Farhadian Weinstein (she worked for him in the Obama Justice Department), briefly embraced the idea that certain banks are “too big to jail.”Tahanie Aboushi, a civil rights lawyer who is essentially a dismantlist, sits at a very different end of the continuum. She is in favor of cutting the budget of the police department by 50 percent, and her antipathy to incarceration extends to a refusal to prosecute a long list of offenses, including harassment in the second degree, which, as Ms. Farhadian Weinstein astutely pointed out in the most recent debate, would include shoving a person on a subway platform out of bias.Even the Five Boro Defenders, a group of lawyers and social justice advocates deeply sympathetic to Ms. Aboushi’s worldview, pointed out in their voting guide that they found it “concerning” that “she frequently lacked a clear understanding or vision” for accomplishing her objectives. Some opposed to Ms. Aboushi’s approach resent her inclusion in a race that they worry could detract from the other leading progressive, Alvin Bragg, the only Black candidate in the field. Nonetheless, Ms. Aboushi has the support of the influential Working Families Party.A native of Harlem, the son of a math teacher and a father who worked in social welfare, Mr. Bragg has a long and impressive résumé, having served as a federal prosecutor under Preet Bharara (who has endorsed him) and in various top positions in the state attorney general’s office. There he oversaw an investigation into the Police Department’s stop-and-frisk program and found that only one-tenth of 1 percent of stops, over a period of three years, resulted in convictions for a violent crime. He also worked to repeal 50-a, the law that shielded the misbehaviors of the police from the public for so long.“The thing about Alvin is that you don’t have to worry about his sincerity as a reformer,” Zephyr Teachout, the legal scholar who challenged Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo from the left in the Democratic primary six years ago. “He has done the work.”Whoever becomes the next D.A. will inherit the case against the Trump Organization and all the major legacy potential that comes along with it. In the eyes of many New Yorkers, Manhattan’s next district attorney will either be the one to finally bring Donald Trump to account — or be remembered as the one who failed to do so. For the moment at least, there is no evidence that anyone running would need to back away from the challenge of that. More

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      in Elections

      How Eric Adams, Mayoral Candidate, Mixed Money and Political Ambition

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      Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, has called money the “enemy of politics.” But his fund-raising has repeatedly pushed the boundaries of campaign-finance and ethics laws.Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, had begun making the rounds for a nascent mayoral campaign when he arrived at a small gathering in spring 2018.The real estate developer David Schwartz had invited associates to meet Mr. Adams — and cut him a check — at his company’s Manhattan offices. Mr. Adams delivered a short stump speech, talking about his conversion to a plant-based diet and how as mayor he would ensure that schoolchildren no longer ate pizza that resembled cardboard, according to people who were there. He raised $20,000 that day, records show.Mr. Schwartz’s company, Slate Property Group, had recently sought city permission to erect a tower in Downtown Brooklyn nearly twice as tall as zoning allowed. Six months after the fund-raiser, Mr. Adams endorsed Slate’s zoning change, despite objections from the local community board.Mr. Adams, 60, a former police officer who is among the leading candidates in the June Democratic primary for mayor, has termed money the “enemy of politics” and called for complete public financing of campaigns. Yet his dealings with Mr. Schwartz offer but one example of how, across his 15 years in elected office, he has used government power to benefit donors and advance his political ambitions.Mr. Adams’s relationships with his donors, as a state senator and then as borough president, have at times drawn attention and prompted investigations. His ties to developers have increasingly come under fire by critics of the gentrification that is sweeping across Brooklyn and much of the city. He has never been formally accused of wrongdoing. But a review by The New York Times of campaign filings, nonprofit filings, lobbying reports and other records shows that, to a greater degree than is publicly known, he has continued to push the boundaries of campaign-finance and ethics laws.Since taking office as borough president in 2014, Mr. Adams has cut a wide swath in raising money for his campaign. He has amassed the largest war chest of any of the mayoral candidates, with about $7.9 million on hand, according to the city’s Campaign Finance Board. More than a third of the money he has raised from private sources has come from people associated with the real estate industry.At the same time, he has promoted Brooklyn and himself through a nonprofit group, One Brooklyn Fund Inc., that has permitted donors to support him without the spending limits city law imposes on political campaigns.Mr. Adams has taken money from developers who, like Mr. Schwartz, have lobbied him or won his recommendation for crucial zoning changes. In several cases, he appears to have violated city campaign-finance law by failing to report that developers and others have raised money for him. That may have allowed him to obtain public matching funds to which he was not entitled.He has solicited and received donations from people and entities that sought, and in some cases were awarded, grants from his office’s annual $59 million capital fund. And he has wielded the megaphone of his office for the causes, people and groups he favors, including his contributors.Mr. Adams has also forged close ties with lobbyists who have registered to influence him for their clients. Two of the lobbyists sit on his nonprofit’s board, and a third was recently hired as a campaign consultant.Mr. Adams declined to be interviewed but issued a statement about his fund-raising record.“Black candidates for office are often held to a higher, unfair standard — especially those from lower-income backgrounds such as myself,” he said.“No campaign of mine has ever been charged with a serious fund-raising violation, and no contribution has ever affected my decision-making as a public official — yet I am still being cross-examined for accusations made and answered more than a decade ago. I hope that by becoming mayor I can change minds and create one equal standard for all.”Seeking the Democratic nomination for mayor, Mr. Adams handed out fliers last month in Corona, Queens.James Estrin/The New York TimesIn many ways, Mr. Adams’s mix of money and politics reflects a career spent disregarding established norms in favor of nurturing constituencies that have helped him rise through New York’s civic life. He has gone from gadfly, an outspoken advocate for Black police officers, to political insider in Albany and Brooklyn, from Democrat to Republican and back again. As borough president, he has embraced real estate developers while appealing to public-housing residents and railing against gentrification.Politics is, of course, inherently transactional, and generations of elected officials have raised money from people with interests before their government. That nexus has traditionally been challenging ground for regulators and prosecutors to police.That was the case in 2017, when federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York examined episodes in which Mayor Bill de Blasio or his surrogates sought donations from people seeking favors from the city, and then made inquiries to city agencies on their behalf. In deciding not to bring charges, the acting United States attorney, Joon H. Kim, cited “the particular difficulty in proving criminal intent in corruption schemes where there is no evidence of personal profit.” Mr. de Blasio received a warning letter about those activities from the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board.Mr. de Blasio, like Mr. Adams, used a nonprofit to raise money. Amid the controversy, he shut it down.Richard Briffault, a former chairman of the Conflicts of Interest Board, said that while self-enrichment was the primary focus of local ethics laws, soliciting contributions for a campaign or nonprofit from people who stand to benefit from one’s actions would also present ethical issues.“If somebody is using their public position in order to sway donations, that would certainly be, if not officially barred, clearly unethical,” said Mr. Briffault, who now teaches election law and government ethics at Columbia Law School.Conflicts of interest can also be more nuanced. Elected officials, he said, may feel an unconscious bias: “It’s reciprocity in some fundamental sense. We want to be nice to people who have been nice to us.”A Prodigious Fund-RaiserMr. Adams speaking about the Police Department in front of City Hall in 1998. He was on the force for more than two decades.  Chester Higgins Jr./The New York TimesMr. Adams rose to prominence in the 1990s as an outspoken critic of the city’s Police Department from within the ranks, calling out what he saw as institutional racism and arguing for criminal justice reform. He eventually became president of the Grand Council of Guardians, an advocacy group for Black officers, and co-founded a second group, 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. Through that activism, he has said, he gained experience raising money for causes across New York.Mr. Adams further honed that skill when, after 22 years on the police force, he won election to the State Senate in 2005. After Democrats claimed the Senate majority, he was named chairman of the plum Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee. According to a 2010 analysis by Bennett Liebman, then the executive director of Albany Law School’s Government Law Center, Mr. Adams raised nearly $74,000 that year from racing and gaming interests.“Has there ever been as active a committee chair receiving political contributions as Senator Eric Adams?” Mr. Liebman wrote.Mr. Adams soon became embroiled in a scandal after his committee helped choose a purveyor of video-lottery machines at Aqueduct Racetrack. The state inspector general found that he and other Senate Democrats had fraternized with lobbyists and accepted significant campaign contributions from people affiliated with the contenders.Mr. Adams disavowed responsibility.“This process — it disturbed me,” he told investigators, according to an interview transcript, adding that “it was created beyond my arrival.”Mr. Adams at the State Senate in 2009. He would soon be entangled in a scandal involving lobbyists and Aqueduct Racetrack.Mike Groll/Associated PressBut documents from the investigation, never previously disclosed, show that during the bidding process, several contenders were invited to a Sept. 3, 2009, birthday fund-raiser for Mr. Adams at the Grand Havana Room, a Midtown Manhattan cigar bar and haunt of the politically powerful.“Team, we will absolutely need to be present at this event for Senator Adams,” Andrew Frank, a consultant to the Aqueduct Entertainment Group, wrote in an email to its principals, according to a transcript of his interview with investigators. The company’s lobbyists had recommended going, Mr. Frank recalled in the interview.With the support of Senate leaders including Mr. Adams, Gov. David A. Paterson selected Aqueduct Entertainment Group for the contract. Among other issues, the inspector general’s report faulted Mr. Adams and other senators for attending a celebratory dinner at the home of a company lobbyist before the contract was finalized. The senators, the inspector general said, had used “exceedingly poor judgment.”Ultimately, state officials rescinded the contract award and restarted the process. Federal prosecutors investigated but did not bring charges.For Mr. Adams, though, the episode was both a warning and a prologue.Promoting His Borough, and HimselfIn 2014, Mr. Adams became Brooklyn borough president. An inquiry opened that year into his solicitation of funding.James Estrin/The New York TimesOn the next-to-last day of February 2014, leaders of Brooklyn businesses, schools and hospitals filtered into Borough Hall for a discussion of how they might help “enhance the lives of Brooklynites.” They were handed lists of ready-planned events — a turkey drive, concerts, holiday celebrations — along with fliers featuring corporate logos to show how they would be recognized for their sponsorship.“I was a little puzzled about what was going on,” said Lyn Hill, who attended as a representative of New York Methodist Hospital in Park Slope.Their host was Mr. Adams, newly inaugurated to a job, borough president, with limited power — making detailed recommendations, but not deciding, on zoning changes, awarding capital grants and appointing community board members — but abundant opportunity for civic boosterism.The cheerleading art had been perfected by Mr. Adams’s predecessor, Marty Markowitz, “Mr. Brooklyn,” who had elevated the borough’s profile, and his own, with an array of events. To pay for them, he had created a network of nonprofit groups that raised millions of dollars, much of it from donors with business before the city.Mr. Adams would follow in his footsteps. To enlist supporters for his new nonprofit, One Brooklyn, he had organized the Borough Hall event, with an invitation list based in part on the donor rolls for Mr. Markowitz’s nonprofits, records show.One Brooklyn had yet to register with the state, and after the event drew media attention, the city’s Department of Investigation opened an inquiry into whether it had violated conflict-of-interest laws. In an August 2014 memo, the inspector general, Andrew Sein, concluded that Mr. Adams and his nonprofit appeared to have improperly solicited funding from groups that either had or would soon have matters pending before his office.At least three entities that sent representatives were seeking capital grants from Mr. Adams’s office at around the time of the event, investigators found. There is no indication that those organizations ultimately donated.Mr. Adams’s office emphasized to investigators that the slip-ups had occurred early in his administration and promised to comply with the law going forward. The Department of Investigation normally refers such cases to the Conflict of Interest Board to determine penalties. Neither agency would comment, but no enforcement action was taken.Mr. Adams is the only one of the city’s current borough presidents with such a nonprofit, which under city law is permitted to raise private money to augment limited government funding. The group has given out grants and staged dozens of events for Mr. Adams to host, to celebrate holidays, to honor constituent groups, and more. At a candidate forum last week, Mr. Adams said he was proud of that work and had hired a compliance officer to ensure rules were followed.“I did not go from being a person that enforced the law to become one that breaks the law,” he said.But One Brooklyn has also proven to be an effective vehicle for him in circumventing the city’s campaign-finance laws. In all, it has reported taking in at least $2.2 million.Under the campaign-finance laws, citywide candidates cannot accept corporate donations and may take no more than $400 per election cycle from people doing business with the city. Nonprofits like One Brooklyn, however, can accept unlimited contributions, provided they adhere to certain strictures.To be eligible to accept unlimited contributions, One Brooklyn must certify that it spends no more than 10 percent of its funding on communications for Mr. Adams. The intent is to blunt a nonprofit’s political messaging power.But Mr. Adams found a workaround — using advertising dollars and taxpayer resources to publicize One Brooklyn’s events and himself.A newsletter, also called One Brooklyn, displayed Mr. Adams’s picture on some pages six times and featured events staged by the nonprofit and the borough president’s office. The newsletter, last published before the coronavirus pandemic, was funded by advertisers, some of whom are also Mr. Adams’s donors.The January 2018 issue, for instance, depicted the borough president and his mother on the cover with the headline “How I Got Mom Off Insulin in 30 Days.” Broadway Stages, a film-production company that deals with the city government on permitting and real estate issues, bought a full-page ad congratulating Mr. Adams “for your dedication and commitment to Brooklyn.” The company has given $25,000 to One Brooklyn, and its employees have contributed to Mr. Adams’s campaign fund. A company spokesman, Juda Engelmayer, said the owners had long been friends with Mr. Adams and supported many community causes.A newsletter, paid for by advertisers, that Mr. Adams has used to promote himself and events hosted by his nonprofit.Mr. Adams has also used his government website to promote One Brooklyn’s events and his nonprofit’s donors.The city’s conflict-of-interest rules prohibit public servants from soliciting or accepting donations from anyone with a “particular matter” pending before them. On its website, One Brooklyn says the borough president’s office does not accept such donations. But the nonprofit appears to have done so.Over four years beginning in 2015, Green-Wood Cemetery, a national historic landmark, was awarded three grants from the borough president’s capital fund, totaling $907,000, for an education center and a new trolley and caboose. The cemetery was twice invited to One Brooklyn’s annual gala and donated $5,000 each time. The first gift, in 2017, was accepted; the second was returned because of a possible conflict, Green-Wood’s president, Richard J. Moylan, said by email. Green-Wood’s final grant — for $500,000, to finish the education center — was awarded in 2019, with Mr. Adams announcing the gift with a gigantic mock check.“Green-Wood is proud of our role as a good corporate citizen,” Mr. Moylan said.One Brooklyn has allowed campaign donors to support Mr. Adams’s political ambitions far more generously than they can under the city’s campaign-finance law.Jed Walentas, who runs the development firm Two Trees Management, is limited to $400 in campaign contributions per election cycle, because he is on the list of people doing business with the city. But Mr. Walentas’s family foundation has given One Brooklyn $50,000, records show. (Mr. Adams’s campaign has also received at least $24,000 from other donors solicited by or connected to Mr. Walentas.)Jed Walentas is a property developer with business before the city. His family foundation has given Mr. Adams’s nonprofit $50,000.Katherine Marks for The New York TimesFor his part, Mr. Adams championed a $2.7 billion streetcar plan that Mr. Walentas has promoted through a group he founded, Friends of Brooklyn Queens Connector Inc. The streetcar, Mr. Adams tweeted in 2018, “has real potential to be one of those solutions for our disconnected waterfront.” The project stalled, and Mr. Adams has recently distanced himself from it in the glare of the mayoral race.The borough president is also in line to issue an opinion on a rezoning request for Two Trees’ next big project, River Ring, a pair of apartment and commercial towers with a waterfront park in Williamsburg. In city filings, Kenneth Fisher, a lobbyist for Two Trees, has identified the borough president as a potential lobbying target.Mr. Adams, in a recent interview, said he was already “extremely impressed” with the way the Two Trees plan had taken account of rising sea levels. “This is how we need to start thinking,” he added. Mr. Walentas declined to comment.The lines between Mr. Adams’s nonprofit and his campaign can sometimes blur.Edolphus Towns, a former congressman and one of two lobbyists on One Brooklyn’s board, has bundled about $7,000 in campaign contributions for Mr. Adams, records show.Mr. Towns has also registered to lobby Mr. Adams on behalf of Arker Diversified Companies, an affordable-housing developer that worked on the Fountains, a project in East New York that was supported by the borough president, according to city lobbying filings. A political action committee created by Arker executives gave Mr. Adams’s campaigns $6,350 between 2013 and 2016. They declined to comment.Mr. Towns said he had not lobbied Mr. Adams and did not recall registering to do so. He said they had become friends when Mr. Adams, then in the Police Department, worked with Mr. Towns, then a congressman, on criminal justice issues. “Eric was very helpful in getting rid of toy guns that look like real guns,” Mr. Towns said.‘What Oil Is to Texas’Mr. Adams leaving a campaign event last week in Manhattan.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesThe borough president’s relationship to the real estate industry has become something of a campaign issue, and several other candidates have pledged to refuse developers’ contributions.Mr. Adams, who owns the small rental building where he lives, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, dismisses that suggestion, arguing that all landlords should not be tarred for the sins of the bad ones. And while he has come out in favor of a number of his donors’ projects, and of development in general, he has decried the gentrification that has displaced longtime residents and businesses.“Go back to Iowa,” he said in remarks directed at newcomers during a January 2020 event in Harlem. After the comments drew criticism, Mr. Adams tried to clarify: He said he welcomed people from elsewhere but wanted them to invest in their new neighborhoods.In interviews, several figures in the real estate industry said contributions to Mr. Adams’s campaign were not simply transactional but reflective of his overall support..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Whatever the precise dynamic, Mr. Adams had amassed at least $937,000 from developers, property managers, architects, contractors and others as of his campaign filing in March. That represented more than a third of his total private contributions, excluding public matching funds, an analysis shows, and included money from developers of luxury buildings in gentrifying neighborhoods.(In order to qualify for public matching funds under a new city program, Mr. Adams’s campaign voluntarily returned more than $300,000 of that real estate industry money — including portions of several donations referenced in this article — because it exceeded the program’s contribution limits.)Among the early backers of Mr. Adams’s mayoral bid was Mr. Schwartz, the Slate group co-founder.On May 25, 2018, a Slate affiliate filed a city land-use application to build a 40-story tower on a wedge-shaped plot in Downtown Brooklyn zoned for roughly 24 stories. Mr. Adams would have to issue an advisory opinion on the proposed zoning change.Three weeks after the filing, on the evening of June 13, Mr. Schwartz hosted the fund-raiser for Mr. Adams at his East 29th Street offices. According to people who attended, Mr. Schwartz organized the event and personally invited guests.Mr. Schwartz, who was on the city’s doing-business list, distanced himself and Slate from the event. He did not personally contribute; he had last given Mr. Adams’s campaign $320 in 2015. And he sent the invitation in the name of a management company that operates in the same offices as Slate. The invitation — in blue, yellow and white, with an “Eric Adams 2021” logo — suggested contributions ranging from $300 for a “friend” to $1,000 for a “sponsor.”Several of Mr. Schwartz’s vendors donated: a demolition contractor gave $2,000, a real estate lawyer $2,500 and an appliance vendor $5,000.Under city campaign-finance law, amounts greater than $500 spent by third parties on fund-raising events and the value of event spaces are supposed to be reported as in-kind contributions, and their organizers, in most cases, must be listed as intermediaries. But Mr. Adams’s disclosures did not list Mr. Schwartz as an in-kind contributor; nor did he report paying for the event himself. What’s more, he did not report Mr. Schwartz as an intermediary, or “bundler,” of others’ donations. Had Mr. Adams done so, the donations Mr. Schwartz solicited would not have been eligible for public matching funds, since he was on the doing-business list.A lawyer for Slate, David Grandeau, said in a statement that “the value of hosting the event was de minimis, and all of the host’s obligations were fulfilled.”David Schwartz, a developer, organized a fund-raising event for Mr. Adams in 2018. Mr. Adams later opposed a community board and came out in favor of an application Mr. Schwartz had before the city.Emily AssiranThe Times identified several other fund-raisers others had hosted for which Mr. Adams’s campaign did not report any expenditures, in-kind contributions or intermediaries. A campaign spokesman said that he did not use a professional finance team, and that paperwork had sometimes fallen through the cracks.Four months after Mr. Schwartz’s event, Brooklyn’s Community Board 2 recommended against Slate’s zoning change, citing what its acting chairwoman, Irene Janner, called the distressing “Manhattanization” of the borough’s central business district.But on Nov. 30, Mr. Adams came out in favor of the rezoning, provided the developer met certain conditions, such as affordable housing designed for families and the elderly, using Brooklyn-based contractors and incorporating features like solar panels. In his report, he referred to the need for office space, among other considerations, but did not disclose his fund-raising relationship with Mr. Schwartz. The City Council later approved Slate’s rezoning.The Slate executive was one of at least three donors receiving the borough president’s endorsement for zoning changes against the wishes of community boards. The others were also later approved by the City Council.Last September, for example, Mr. Adams came out in favor of a rezoning for a proposed 13-story building on Coney Island Avenue in Windsor Terrace, overlooking Prospect Park.Some local residents and Community Board 7 had opposed the plans by JEMB Realty, the developer, arguing mainly that the building’s height would be inappropriate for the neighborhood. Mr. Adams’s endorsement came with several conditions, including more parking for cars and bicycles.In March, JEMB’s founder, Joseph L. Jerome, contributed $2,000 to the borough president’s campaign. Mr. Jerome had last donated to Mr. Adams in March 2015.Mr. Jerome said the donations had nothing to do with Mr. Adams’s actions. “He’s a very good candidate,” Mr. Jerome said.Late last year, Mr. Adams appeared by Zoom as a special guest at an investor meetingfor SL Green, Manhattan’s largest office landlord, offering reassurance after a pandemic year of empty buildings.Mr. Adams called SL Green an “amazing company,” addressed its investors as “partners” and assured them that he would push for a speeded return to offices, suggesting that up to 90 percent of workers could do so safely.“What oil is to Texas, real estate is to New York,” Mr. Adams said. “And we take great pride in having the real oil fields here in our real estate community.”Not long afterward, on March 11, the wife and the sister of SL Green’s chairman, Marc Holliday, along with three company executives, donated a total of $10,000 to Mr. Adams’s campaign. None had contributed before. Mr. Holliday, who is on the city’s doing-business list, did not donate. Mr. Holliday and SL Green declined to comment.The Bully PulpitMr. Adams has used news conferences to promote donors’ products and causes.Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York TimesIn March, Mr. Adams stood in front of Borough Hall, his thumb up, as the influential New York City local of the Service Employees International Union endorsed him for mayor. Beside him stood Tiffany Raspberry, a lobbyist who is also a consultant on his campaign payroll.“Let’s Go #TeamAdams!” Ms. Raspberry tweeted afterward.Ms. Raspberry has registered to lobby Mr. Adams on behalf of at least three clients over the past few years. Executives from all three organizations have donated to Mr. Adams’s campaign fund, as has Ms. Raspberry. She has given to One Brooklyn as well.One of the clients was Mr. Schwartz of Slate. Another, Core Services Group, is a shelter provider for the homeless.In 2017, after city officials announced that Core would open a shelter in Crown Heights, local residents complained that their area was unfairly burdened. Mr. Adams took Core’s side, using a potent tool he has wielded for some donors: the platform of his office. In his newsletter, he urged the community to embrace the shelter and its occupants, writing that his mother had called to tell him that when he was a child, they had routinely been on the verge of homelessness.“Although I still believe that the city should have opened the first of its new shelters in communities that don’t currently have any, my mom has assisted me in amending my thinking on this issue,” Mr. Adams wrote.Over the next three years, 13 Core executives and employees contributed nearly $7,000 to his campaign, records show. In a statement, Core said its employees know “the importance of supporting leaders who champion policies that leave no New Yorker behind.”In an email, Ms. Raspberry said she had known Mr. Adams for 25 years, since her mother worked in the same police precinct as him, and had supported him because he had “consistently been there for people in need and communities of color.”She added, “I find it disturbing that any time a Black woman achieves any level of success on her own merits, questions are raised.”Mr. Adams has publicized products as well.In 2018, he held a news conference at Borough Hall to tout BolaWrap, a Spider-Man-like device that he said the police could use to subdue criminal suspects or the emotionally disturbed.“I’m formally requesting the department pilot this nonlethal restraint technology,” Mr. Adams tweeted later.Scot Cohen, executive chairman of Wrap Technologies, the company that sells the device, had given Mr. Adams’s campaign $1,500 four months before the news conference and gave $2,500 more three months later. The chief financial officer, James Barnes, contributed $5,000. And during the same period, Mr. Adams received $5,100 from Richard Abbe, a former business associate of Mr. Cohen’s and co-founder of Iroquois Capital Management, a Wrap investor. Mr. Abbe and Wrap executives did not respond to requests for comment.The company has featured Mr. Adams prominently on its website.Others who have contributed to Mr. Adams and benefited from his bully pulpit say they simply appreciate his attentiveness to their causes.In 2015, a year into his first term, Mr. Adams organized a news conference on a snowy Sunday to highlight the plight of Hurricane Sandy victims. He stood with two lawyers outside the Gerritsen Beach home of a family that said an insurance company had fraudulently denied its claim for damage from the 2012 storm. Mr. Adams urged homeowners to refile their rejected claims, and called on the state attorney general’s office to oversee the process.Three days earlier, records show, the two lawyers, along with the father and brother of one of them, had donated a total of $8,500 to the Adams campaign. The lawyers’ donations were the largest they had ever made to a city official, records show.One of the lawyers, Benjamin Pinczewski, said he and his partner later recovered millions of dollars in settlements for the hurricane victims.Mr. Pinczewski said the donations and news conference were unrelated and noted that he had donated to Mr. Adams on many other occasions. After learning that insurance companies were wrongly denying claims from hurricane victims, he said, he had reached out to many politicians. Only Mr. Adams and a local councilman responded.“Eric showed me right then and there that he wasn’t just talk,” Mr. Pinczewski said.Reporting was contributed by More

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      Andrew Yang's Campaign Is Guided by a Wealthy Lobbyist

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      Andrew Yang’s relationship with Bradley Tusk, a tech investor, has raised concerns about conflicts of interest if he is elected.When Andrew Yang parachuted into the New York City mayor’s race from a losing presidential campaign, he was a known national quantity but unknown in the insular world of local politics.He did not rise from a political club, had never run for local office and had no established base of financial or political support in the city. He had never even voted in a mayoral election.But he had one major asset working in his favor: He had joined forces with Bradley Tusk, a powerful New York political strategist, lobbyist and venture capitalist whose investments could hinge on government action.Mr. Yang leads most early polling in a race for mayor that is less than seven weeks away. But Mr. Tusk’s personal business concerns could present significant potential conflicts of interest should Mr. Yang be elected mayor. Mr. Tusk, 47, has an expansive political and financial portfolio. He worked for Senator Chuck Schumer as his communications director, was a special adviser to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and then became deputy governor of Illinois, under Gov. Rod Blagojevich.His venture firm lists interests in high-profile companies like Bird, the electric scooter company; Coinbase, a cryptocurrency company; and Latch, a company that makes keyless entry systems for homes.He also has a well-known penchant for self-aggrandizement: His 2018 book is called “The Fixer: My Adventures Saving Startups From Death by Politics.” He describes various exploits, including how he helped Uber ward off government regulations — though some of his colleagues have said that he has taken more credit than he deserves. Nonetheless, because he took equity in the company in exchange for consulting advice, he ultimately cashed out for what some reports estimate as $100 million.And now he is advising a candidate with a total absence of government experience — so much so that Mr. Tusk recently called Mr. Yang an “empty vessel.” “Tusk could essentially be the shadow mayor for New York, while he is representing the interests of big corporate clients,” said John Kaehny, executive director of the good-government group Reinvent Albany.After The New York Times sought comment from Mr. Yang’s campaign, Mr. Tusk posted a 1,000-word statement on Medium blaming his political opponents for rumor-mongering, and outlining policies that he and his team would follow should Mr. Yang win the election.“If we win, I will not lobby or talk with the new mayor — nor anyone in a Yang administration — on any matter that intersects with our work,” he wrote on Thursday.Andrew Yang has embraced stances that could help Mr. Tusk’s investments and his lobbying clients.Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesVoters who like Mr. Yang and his upbeat vision for the city’s recovery might not know Mr. Tusk’s name. His closeness to big business and connections to Mr. Bloomberg have led some Democrats to worry that Mr. Yang will embrace a Wall Street-centric vision for New York City.“Tusk spent the past decade defending billionaires and corporate interests,” said Monica Klein, a progressive political strategist. “If Yang won, there’s no question his agenda would mirror Tusk’s — and most New Yorkers aren’t looking for a mayor that will cater to the wealthy and corporations.”Mr. Tusk’s firm has proudly represented clients whose policies run afoul of Democratic orthodoxy: the hard-charging police union; a Republican who ran for New York attorney general; and the organizers of a campaign to preserve an admissions exam that has resulted in the enrollment of only tiny numbers of Black and Latino students in New York City’s elite high schools.Mr. Yang said he would not be influenced by his strategist. “I chose Tusk because they are experts in NYC politics,” he said in a statement relayed by Chris Coffey, who works for both Mr. Yang and Tusk Strategies. “New Yorkers know I’ve always been independent and have my own vision — I wrote a book in 2018 that spells out my agenda quite clearly. If elected, my decisions will be mine alone.”Mr. Yang has done little to allay concerns over conflicts of interest. He does not have his own office — his staffers work from home when they are not in the field — but he uses Mr. Tusk’s office for storage. He has also repeatedly embraced stances that would benefit both Mr. Tusk’s investments and his lobbying clients.Mr. Yang has long been a fan of Bird, the e-scooter company that Mr. Tusk has an ownership stake in and that is participating in a city-governed program in the Bronx.“Every once in a while a Bird scooter feels like the greatest invention in the world,” Mr. Yang tweeted in June 2019, before Mr. Tusk spoke to him about running for mayor.Other ideas seem to have sprung more directly from the Tusk-Yang mind-meld.One of Mr. Yang’s very first proposals after announcing his run for mayor was that the city should put a casino on Governors Island. Mr. Yang argued the city could reap financial benefit from the casino, with the added benefit of making New York City “more fun.” Critics immediately pounced, noting that the island in New York Harbor is a peaceful respite so ill-suited to gambling halls that they are expressly forbidden in the island’s deed.Mr. Yang did not back down. Nor did Mr. Tusk, whose interest in casino investment is longstanding.In 2018, his casino management company, then called Ivory Gaming, mounted a bid for a casino site in Las Vegas. He told Politico that if he won, he would put an ax-throwing facility inside the casino. The deal did not move forward.Ivory Gaming ultimately spawned IG Acquisition Corp., a gambling concern that reportedly raised $300 million in the public markets to invest in the industry. Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicate that Mr. Tusk’s publicly traded shell corporation is aiming to identify “businesses in the leisure, gaming and hospitality industries with an enterprise value exceeding $750 million, with particular emphasis on businesses that are well-positioned for growth.”The casino issue in New York City is poised to become a major one for the next mayor. Starting in 2023, the state is expected to open bidding on three casino licenses for the area in and around New York City.A spokesman for Mr. Tusk said he would have no role in a New York City casino and never had intended to.In his Medium statement, Mr. Tusk said his involvement in Mr. Yang’s campaign stemmed from the need for innovation after the pandemic.“We took on this campaign because we looked at the crisis facing this city, looked at the options of viable candidates and knew we could do a lot better,” he said.His campaign also pointed to other candidates who are working with consulting firms that are involved in lobbying — a practice recently highlighted by City & State..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The firms include Pitta LLP, which is working for Eric Adams’s campaign and has ties to lobbyists who represent Wheels Labs, an e-bike company, and the unions for police detectives and transit workers; and Global Strategy Group, which is working for Scott Stringer’s campaign and whose clients include RXR Realty, a prominent real estate company, and MGM Resorts, according to state records.Mr. Tusk’s investments go well beyond the gambling industry. His venture capital firm has also invested in three companies dealing in the technology underpinning Bitcoin. The state regulates e-coin, but the city may well have an interest in the sector under a Yang mayoralty, too.“As mayor of NYC — the world’s financial capital — I would invest in making the city a hub for BTC and other cryptocurrencies,” Mr. Yang tweeted in February, apparently referring to Bitcoin.Mr. Tusk’s venture capital firm has also invested in Latch, an app-based door-locking company that critics argue will allow landlords to surveil their tenants’ movements and keep track of their visitors. Mr. Tusk’s consulting firm, Tusk Strategies, lobbied against recent efforts in the City Council to limit the company’s operations in New York City.Several of the Tusk lobbyists listed as working for Latch in New York State’s lobbying database are also working for Mr. Yang’s campaign, including Mr. Coffey, one of Mr. Yang’s campaign managers; Mr. Yang’s senior adviser Eric Soufer; and his press secretary, Jake Sporn. The Yang campaign has been paying Tusk Strategies about $33,000 per month.“First, you don’t want a mayor whose staff are the same as the lobbyists for for-profit corporations with interests before the city,” said Brad Lander, a candidate for comptroller who is the sponsor of a City Council bill that would limit Latch’s operations. “You sure don’t want a mayor with a staff who are not only staff of the lobbyists, but staff of the for-profit interests themselves.”Mr. Tusk’s work history is as unconventional as the campaign he is now running for Mr. Yang. He grew up on Long Island and started out handling press for the famously idiosyncratic Parks Department commissioner Henry Stern, before joining Senator Schumer’s office. From there, he worked as an aide to Mr. Bloomberg.Mr. Tusk was heavily involved in the successful effort to amend New York City’s term-limits law, allowing Michael Bloomberg to win a third term as mayor.Ruby Washington/The New York TimesAt the age of 29, as Mr. Tusk recounts in his book, a friend from his Schumer days asked if he wanted to work as a deputy governor under Mr. Blagojevich, who would later end up in prison for soliciting bribes and trying to benefit from filling President Barack Obama’s former Senate seat.Mr. Tusk was unsure if he had the requisite skill set for the job, but he was smart and hard-working and learned a lesson he found so profound that he used it as a chapter title in his book: “Not Being Qualified for a Job Shouldn’t Stop You.”Mr. Blagojevich was uninterested in governing, and Mr. Tusk has said that he essentially ran the state. Mr. Tusk testified at Mr. Blagojevich’s corruption trial in 2010 and said he steered clear of any wrongdoing.Mr. Tusk went on to work for Lehman Brothers, leaving the bank just before its collapse. He ran Mr. Bloomberg’s re-election drive in 2009, in which the incumbent mayor, even with a huge campaign budget of $100 million, barely prevailed over the Democratic New York City comptroller, William C. Thompson.Then he jumped into the world of political consulting and lobbying, working to expand charter schools. His firm lobbies for the Education Equity Campaign, an organization funded by the cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder that wants to keep the admissions test for selective high schools. The firm emphasized that it stopped representing the police union before it endorsed Donald J. Trump.Mr. Tusk began discussing the race with Mr. Yang in early November; Kevin Sheekey, who ran Mr. Bloomberg’s presidential campaign, had introduced Mr. Tusk to Mr. Yang’s campaign manager, Zach Graumann, not long after Mr. Yang dropped out of the presidential race.Mr. Tusk had been looking for a like-minded mayoral candidate for years. In 2017, he tried — unsuccessfully — to recruit a candidate to run against Mayor Bill de Blasio.In the Medium post, Mr. Tusk noted that he had not worked on a mayoral campaign since his Bloomberg days, adding that he decided to get involved now because he wanted to protect New York and his interests there, including his plans to open a bookstore and podcast studio on the Lower East Side.“Obviously, this is happening because their candidates and campaigns are behind in the polls and they’re looking for anything that can stick,” he wrote, before adding parenthetically, “I’m familiar with how this stuff works.” More

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      2,596 Trades in One Term: Inside Senator Perdue’s Stock Portfolio

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesWho Gets the Vaccine First?Vaccine TrackerFAQAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story2,596 Trades in One Term: Inside Senator Perdue’s Stock PortfolioThe Georgia Republican’s stock trades have far outpaced those of his Senate colleagues and have included a range of companies within his Senate committees’ oversight, an analysis shows.Senator David Perdue’s stock trading accounts for nearly a third of all Senate trades reported in the past six years.Credit…Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call/Bloomberg, via Getty ImagesBy More