Randy Mastro, Mayor Eric Adams’ controversial nominee to be New York City’s next top lawyer, withdrew his nomination Tuesday just days before the City Council was expected to vote it down — blaming a process that Mastro called “anything but fair.”
A former deputy mayor and accomplished litigator, he sent a letter to Adams thanking him for the opportunity to serve as New York City’s corporation counsel but saying “it is not to be.”
“Speaker [Adrienne] Adams has now made clear, by the way she permitted the Council to conduct its hearing on my nomination, that she intends to deny you the nominee of your choice,” he wrote.
“I do not know what possessed the City Council to conduct this confirmation hearing as it did.”
The Council, which was granted the authority to approve the corporation counsel pick in a 2019 revision of the City Charter, grilled Mastro for more than 8 hours during an Aug. 27 hearing on the nomination, blasting his time working as a deputy mayor under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his representation of clients that included landlords and groups suing to halt congestion pricing for vehicles entering Manhattan.
A majority of the 51-member Council denounced the mayor’s pick as the lawyer for the city as soon as reports of his nomination came out in April. Mayor Adams forged on anyway, but a public and private campaign to convince Council members and the public of his accomplishments wasn’t successful.
“Randy Mastro is widely recognized as one of our nation’s top lawyers who has fought for social justice, racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and is one of the only lawyers in New York who has taken on Donald Trump multiple times in court and won,” the mayor said in a statement.
“It’s unfortunate that politics has seeped into this process and, as a result, will deprive New Yorkers of one of the most qualified candidates for this office our city has ever seen,” the mayor added.”
The Council was set to vote on the decision Thursday. A spokesperson for the Council, Julia Agos, said in a statement that members were “glad to see the unnecessary conflict and divisiveness that Randy Mastro’s nomination represented come to an end.”
But his withdrawal letter, they added, “demonstrates why so many lacked trust that he would be suitable for all city officials, rather than just for the mayor.”
“New York City needs a top attorney who is independent and willing to stand up when the political interests of an administration conflict with the public interests of New Yorkers,” Agos wrote – adding that the Adams administration shouldn’t have been surprised by the long, combative hearing given the Council’s well-established opposition.
The Law Department currently has an interim corporation counsel in place, Muriel Goode-Trufant, but Mayor Adams can also advance another nominee.
