{"id":193648,"date":"2026-04-11T20:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T20:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/193648\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T20:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T20:25:09","slug":"mamdani-scrambles-to-secure-nyc-council-ok-for-corruption-watchdog-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/193648\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani scrambles to secure NYC Council OK for corruption watchdog pick"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor Mamdani is scrambling to secure NYC Council support for his choice to head the city\u2019s government watchdog agency.<\/p>\n

Hizzoner\u2019s team is working hard to set up private sit-downs with Council members and Nadia Shihata, a former federal prosecutor he nominated as commissioner of the Department of Investigation \u2014 all while the mayor and lawmakers are locked in tense negotiations over next fiscal year\u2019s budget, Politico reported Saturday.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s pick came under fire Monday after Shihata revealed to Council members during a confirmation hearing that she donated $700<\/a> and some of her time to Mamdani\u2019s mayoral campaign.<\/p>\n

\"MayorMayor Mamdani is scrambling to secure NYC Council support for his choice to head the city\u2019s government watchdog agency. Gabriella Bass for NY Post<\/p>\n

Sources told the outlet \u2014 and later confirmed to The Post \u2014 that the Mayor\u2019s Office\u2019s goal is to ease Council members\u2019 concerns about whether Shihata can truly be impartial. The Council could vote on her nomination as early as Thursday.<\/p>\n

Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan) told Politico she believes the mayor and his staff\u00a0are worried about whether Shihata has enough support.<\/p>\n

\u201cOtherwise they don\u2019t call,\u201d said Brewer, who was contacted about meeting Shihata, but has yet to make up her mind.<\/p>\n

Another Council member who declined to be named said it\u2019s unusual for a mayor to set up meetings with nominees and Council members after a confirmation hearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoing this post-hearing is weird,\u201d the member said.<\/p>\n

\"MayorMamdani\u2019s team is working hard to set up private sit-downs with Council members and Nadia Shihata, a former federal prosecutor he nominated as Department of Investigation commissioner. Gabriella Bass for NY Post<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s staff\u2019s outreach has even stretched across party lines, with some GOP Council members contacted, although no meetings with Republicans had yet to been set as of Saturday, sources said.<\/p>\n

The Mayor\u2019s Office did not return messages but\u00a0Shihata \u2014 who served in the US Attorney\u2019s Office for the Eastern District of New York for 11 years \u2014 defended her ability to remain impartial during the hearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think anyone who knows me or who has worked with me knows my level of professionalism and integrity over my 20-year career, and that I will approach every investigation, including any that may involve the mayor or any senior officials in his administration,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The DOI assisted the feds in the September 2024\u00a0indictment of then-Mayor Eric Adams\u00a0\u2014 prior to the US Department of Justice dropping the charges against him \u2014 as well as in other corruption-related probes involving City Hall.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Mamdani is scrambling to secure NYC Council support for his choice to head the city\u2019s government watchdog…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[301,44349,57,9,6169,56,63,65,563,64,87,58,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-193648","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-city-council","9":"tag-department-of-investigation","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-nominations","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-nyc-headlines","16":"tag-nyc-mayoral-election-2025","17":"tag-nyc-news","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-us-news","20":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}