City Council Speaker Julie Menin is backing Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s nominee to run the Department of Investigation a day ahead of what some expected to be a close confirmation vote.
The speaker’s support for former Brooklyn federal prosecutor Nadia Shihata became crucial after she came under fire at a contentious hearing where Council members questioned her ability to be independent from the mayor given her donations to his campaign and her ties to his general counsel.
Menin is backing Shihata “based on her qualifications and her stated commitment to independent leadership,” a Council spokesperson said Wednesday. “Rooting out corruption and fraud in government is a top priority for the Speaker and she believes Ms. Shihata’s 11 years as a prosecutor in New York’s Eastern District makes her well positioned to take on that fight head on.”
The DOI commissioner’s appointment must be approved by a majority vote, but Shihata’s path to confirmation hit speed bumps at an April 6th hearing before the council’s rules committee.
Council members asked her about $700 in donations she made to the mayor’s campaign — and she admitted she’d canvassed for him once during the 2025 race. Members of the committee questioned Shihata about her longstanding friendship with Ramzi Kassem, the mayor’s general counsel.
Nadia Shihata, Mayor Mamdani’s appointee to head the Department of Investigations, is grilled by member’s of the City Council’s Committee on Rules, Privileges, Elections, Standards and Ethics, April 6, 2026. Credit: Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit
The investigations commissioner is City Hall’s chief corruption watchdog, and the role has traditionally been considered independent of the mayor. The last commissioner, Jocelyn Strauber, helped direct probes that led to charges against Mayor Eric Adams and members of his administration.
Shihata acknowledged that she’d known Kassem since graduating from law school, socialized with him periodically and sought his advice after she left her job as a prosecutor. She testified that Kassem had approached her to ask if she was interested in applying for the DOI commissioner job.
She insisted that she would maintain her independence from the mayor and approach potential investigations “without fear or favor,” including any that might surface regarding the mayor, Kassem or anyone in the administration.
Private social media posts
Mayor Zohran Mamdani announces his nomination of Nadia Shihata as Commissioner of the Department of Investigation (DOI). City Hall. Thursday, February 12, 2026. Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
During the hearing, Councilmember David Carr, R-Staten Island/Brooklyn, asked Shihata about her social media postings, which she said she’d made private sometime after leaving the U.S. Attorney’s office in 2022. One post of hers that wasn’t made private criticized the way the Trump Justice Department was releasing the files related to sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
Shihata told Carr she would consider releasing her private posts to council members, but as of late Wednesday that had not happened.
The tough questioning came amid an emerging split between the Mamdani and Menin over issues including the mayor’s decision to back away from a law the council passed greatly expanding the CityFHEPS housing voucher, and the council’s release of an alternative budget plan that Mamdani called “unrealistic” amid his push for higher taxes on the rich.
Shihata served for a time as the head of the public integrity unit for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s office, and handled high profile cases including the 2021 conviction of R&B singer R. Kelly on sex trafficking charges.
She left the U.S. attorney’s office in 2022 to form a boutique law firm that specialized in sex harassment litigation. She quit last fall and was approached by Kassem about the DOI job shortly after.
On Wednesday, two good government groups, Citizens Union, and Reinvent Albany, both backed Shihata’s appointment, as did two former Brooklyn U.S. attorneys who ran the office when Shihata was there — Breon Peace and Loretta Lynch, who went on to serve as Attorney General during President Obama’s tenure.
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