Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton scrambled a hastily called press conference Sunday in a desperate bid to shoot down The Post’s coverage of a police chief’s resignation — and try to prove their relationship hasn’t been shattered.
Without naming The Post during their 35-minute appearance at Gracie Mansion, they answered repeated questions about the newspaper’s scoops — including the revelation that First Lady Chirlane McCray told her husband, “I told you we can’t trust him!” after she first heard that Bratton allowed the city’s highest-ranking black cop to quit.
De Blasio denied on Sunday that his wife made that statement.
Asked by a Post reporter what she did say, the mayor refused to answer and called it a “private conversation.”
Asked why McCray, whom he has made a public face of the administration, wasn’t at his side to dispute the account, he admitted she was at Gracie Mansion, but stated, “She has a different role.”
Two law enforcement sources on whom The Post relied in its reporting both confirmed the paper’s account Sunday.
One source who watched de Blasio and Bratton’s televised news conference Sunday summarized their remarks by saying, “That’s bulls- -t!”
The controversy began Friday, when Chief of Department Philip Banks III abruptly quit rather than accept a promotion to be Bratton’s No. 2, which Banks believed to be a powerless position.
The Post exclusively reported Saturday that Banks and Bratton had a heated conversation at 1 Police Plaza over the resignation.
The Post also revealed that the commissioner was then summoned to City Hall, where he was chewed out by the mayor.
On Sunday, The Post reported McCray’s fury over the resignation of Banks, whom she originally hoped would be named top cop instead of Bratton.
“I want to make it very plain: Some of the reporting uses unnamed sources who make up entire conversations in their heads and tell flat-out lies. That doesn’t help any of us,” de Blasio said.
He did not deny the report that Banks was McCray’s choice for top cop.
Bratton also insisted that “there are no tensions” between him and the mayor, and called reports that said otherwise “disgraceful.”
McCray later posted a statement to her Tumblr account denying she made the reported remark — and blamed it on “a small but stubborn group of people who adamantly oppose the efforts of Mayor de Blasio and Commissioner Bratton to create a more fair and equal policing system.”
Without identifying her targets, McCray accused them of “spreading lies to irresponsible reporters.”
“The only effective defense against lies is the truth, so here it is: I admire Commissioner Bratton and the work he is doing. I have never questioned his integrity,” she wrote.
At the news conference, de Blasio also defended his decision to consult the Rev. Al Sharpton following Banks’ departure, which left the NYPD without any minorities in its top three posts.
“I think it’s fair to say in the case of Reverend Sharpton, he’s one of the more prominent leaders in the city and he’s certainly the most prominent civil rights leader in the country,” de Blasio said.
“It would seem that he’s a normal person to inform in this case and also ask advice of.”
Bratton expressed regret over Banks’ resignation but said, “The NYPD is more than just one person, and that’s a good thing.”
He added, “There’s so many talented people to choose from” in picking Banks’ replacement, who will be announced Wednesday.
In his first comments since resigning, Banks issued a statement Sunday that called his move a “difficult decision.”
“In this case, while serving as first deputy commissioner would have been an honor, I felt that the position would take me away from where I could make the greatest contribution: the police work and operations that I love so much,” he sad.
Banks also said that while he and Bratton “both made good-faith efforts to bridge that gap, we were not successful.”
Additional reporting by Sean Gubitosi