Mayor de Blasio’s wife was so intimately involved in the operation of City Hall during her husband’s first five weeks in office that she exchanged nearly 1,200 emails with him and his aides, The Post has learned.
Ever since, mayoral lawyers have refused to provide access to the full trove of documents – which they admit could run “tens of thousands of pages” – despite repeated requests by The Post under the Freedom of Information Law.
The request covers the period when McCray was a private citizen with no formal role in the administration — before de Blasio appointed her chair of The Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City on Feb. 8.
While government interactions with private citizens are typically subject to FOIL disclosure, mayoral counsel Henry Berger argued last week that McCray was acting as a consultant whose advice falls under the “inter-agency” and “intra-agency” exemptions to the law.
“As the First Lady of the City, Ms. McCray’s aim is to advance the interests of the people of New York. She has no other clients nor interests she represents,” he wrote on Sept. 5. “As such… her advice is protected under the exemption.”
But Robert Freeman, director of the state’s Committee on Open Government, said the administration’s argument runs counter to the intent of the FOIL law and to a host of judicial decisions.
The prior administration fought for more than two years to hide emails regarding Mayor Bloomberg’s hiring of failed schools chancellor Cathie Black – who was a private citizen at the time – before a court finally forced City Hall to cough them up.
“How can it be that a communication with somebody outside of government – who is not paid to provide guidance, who is not retained – can be characterized as a consultant?” asked Freeman.
“My expectation and hope were that city agencies would function more effectively in their treatment of FOIL [under de Blasio],” he added.
Since the request was submitted Feb. 23, the administration took nearly six months to provide just 17 email exchanges — seven of which were automatic Twitter notices to McCray.
Also included in the 25 pages of documents was a Feb. 5 email from de Blasio to Anna Wintour, cc’ing McCray, in which he thanked the fashion maven for supporting his pre-k initiative — and for being a “great talent scout.”
“I’ll call [redacted] right away. Very much appreciated,” he wrote.
Another group email from the mayor celebrated the fact that The Daily Show with Jon Stewart included a particular scene in the version that aired, after it had apparently run too long.
The Feb. 3 episode included a brutal take-down of the mayor for eating a slice of pizza with a knife and fork.
“They heard our pleas and kept the ending in!” Hizzoner wrote. “Well done, everyone!”
Before taking office as mayor, de Blasio had been unequivocal about the sanctity of public records laws.
“The bottom line here is: This is not an optional matter, and we have to stop letting people get away with it,” he said as public advocate in April 2013.
Since then, he has sounded far less dogmatic in response to complaints by news outlets that the city regularly violates the law – particularly a 20 day limit for providing most responses.
“I’ll certainly look into it – I’m not aware of all the specifics,” he said in late August when questioned about it. “I do know we are trying very consistently to acknowledge FOIL requests and come up with an action plan for each one.”
His administration has said nothing on the matter since.