The top city investigator ripped Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday for using his taxpayer funded security detail for his “personal benefit” — noting Hizzoner repeatedly squandered city resources and didn’t note any specific supposed inaccuracies in the extensive probe when he griped about it.
A scathing Department of Investigation report released Thursday found that the mayor’s NYPD security team was used for “political purposes” during his failed presidential campaign, and to run “errands” for him, including helping his daughter move and chauffeuring his son to school and work.
“When you see a pattern of conduct and a culture that public resources are available for your personal benefit, that’s incredibly destabilizing to good government, it’s not a good use of the public’s money, and things can often snowball,” DOI Commissioner Margaret Garnett said on NY1 Thursday evening.
If “one time a child was dropped off,” it wouldn’t amount to a controversy, but that’s not what occurred with de Blasio’s publicly funded security detail in recent years, she added.
In response to de Blasio claiming following the probe’s release that it was filled with “inconsistencies” and “inaccuracies,” Garnett noted she hadn’t seen Hizzoner point to any particular mistakes.
“I’ve yet to hear any identification of the claimed factual inaccuracies,” said the commissioner, whom the mayor selected in 2018.
During his weekly Friday morning appearance on WNYC, the lame-duck mayor had no answers for his conduct documented by the damning investigation, leaving him recycling grouses about the supposedly error-filled probe. He again whined about the supposed unfairness and incompleteness of the probe, insisting he “very consistently put the public interest first.”
“With all due respect to the commissioner of DOI, this report is so inaccurate, so unmindful of security realities and of how every mayor has been treated for decades, just consistently inaccurate, consistently, a stunningly and consistently ignorant of the reality of security,” he said on “The Brian Lehrer Show.”
“There’s hearsay throughout it. There’s not comprehensive research. … It is not even a professional report.”
“This report was shockingly inaccurate,” he added, again declining to cite any specific mistakes. “I very consistently put the public interest first, and did what was appropriate.”