Following months of speculation, Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday formally nominated litigator Randy Mastro to be the city’s next top attorney — although he is unlikely to be approved by the City Council, where he is unpopular with many lawmakers.
Adams made the controversial decision to nominate Mastro as the city’s next corporation counsel — who leads the city Law Department — roughly two months after the post’s last occupant, Sylvia Hinds-Radix, stepped down. Mastro has faced a tide of opposition from City Council members in the months since rumors of his impending nomination began to swirl and has reportedly worked with City Hall to hold one-on-one meetings with members to sway them in his favor.
Council members opposed to Mastro have cited his six years in former Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s administration — where he served as a deputy mayor and chief of staff — and some of the cases has worked on since then, such as the Bridgegate scandal in New Jersey, as reasons they are against approving him as corporation counsel.
Nevertheless, Mayor Adams, in a statement, lauded many other aspects of Mastro’s career in law, government and the nonprofit sector.
“Randy is a world-renowned attorney who brings decades of experience as a public servant, federal prosecutor, preeminent trial lawyer, and as someone who has built a career around fighting corruption, delivering justice for 9/11 families and non-profit organizations, advocating for the LGBTQ+ community, championing racial justice, and standing up to the Trump administration,” Adams said.
Adams also pointed to Mastro’s litigation against organized crime and work with good government groups like Citizens Union — where he serves as chair. On top of that, his office released statements in support of Mastro’s nomination from legal stalwarts including former US Attorney General Loretta Lynch to labor leaders like Gary LaBarbera, head of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York.
Julia Agos, a spokesperson for City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ office, did not indicate in a statement where the speaker stands on Mastro — instead laying out the process for considering his nomination.
“The council takes this important duty seriously, and once a nomination is formally received at a Stated Meeting, will perform its charter-mandated responsibility to consider the nominee within 30 days,” Agos said. “As part of a transparent public process, a forthcoming hearing will be scheduled that allows for thorough examination, public comment, and due consideration.”
Mastro, in a Tuesday afternoon interview on Pix11, expressed confidence that he has been successful in his campaign to change council members’ opinions of him over the past couple of months.
“Those statements were made at a time when so many of the City Council don’t know me at all and had never met me,” Mastro said. “The fact of the matter is that in the several months since news floated to my dismay that this was being considered, I have had the chance to meet with the majority of members of the City Council and I have found them to be fair and open-minded.”
Mastro added many council members he spoke to were “impressed by those meetings.”
Furthermore, Mastro responded to reporting and some council members’ contentions that Adams wanted to replace Hinds-Radix with him in order to have a more aggressive litigator in place to push back against legal probes surrounding his administration.
Mastro said the corporation council is the city’s lawyer, serving both the mayor and the City Council, and that is how he views the position.
“The mayor has his own counsel in connection with his personal matters … that’s never even been discussed with the mayor,” Mastro said. “I’m being nominated to be the city’s corporation counsel to lead that great office.”
Meanwhile, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, one of the mayor’s harshest critics, charged that the administration is pushing Mastro to defend its actions, such as its refusal to implement certain laws passed by the City Council.
“Randy Mastro’s record does speak for itself, and what it says should cause New Yorkers great concern,” Williams said in a statement. “Both the Council and our office made these concerns clear for months, and the administration stubbornly insisted upon this nomination.”
