Furious Mayor Tried To Suppress Criticism, Fired Watchdog Says

NEW YORK — Mayor Bill de Blasio and his top aides pressured the city's investigation commissioner to sit on critical findings and sometimes responded with fury when he refused, the fired watchdog alleged Monday.

In a letter to City Council lawmakers, Mark Peters described an administration hostile to the Department of Investigation and said he didn't deserve to be ousted Friday because of an attempted internal reorganization.

Peters outlined instances in which he said city officials tried to "punish and intimidate" his department, including a "late night screaming call" from de Blasio and a meeting where a senior NYPD official "conspicuously displayed his gun."

Peters also expressed concern that his removal could hurt DOI's ongoing probes of the New York City Housing Authority and mayoral interference into matters regarding Jewish yeshivas.

"(T)he context of the Mayor's interactions over the past several years with DOI, combined with certain ongoing investigations about which the Mayor and his senior staff are very much aware, must cast doubt upon the Mayor's true motives," Peters wrote.

De Blasio's unprecedented firing of Peters — who was reportedly once his campaign treasurer — came after an independent investigator, James McGovern, found Peters overstepped his authority in taking a Department of Education watchdog under his purview and then firing a staffer who objected.

De Blasio stood by his decision, saying McGovern's report did not comprise the entirety of City Hall's concerns about Peters. The mayor rejected Peters' characterization of his interactions with his administration, though he said it's appropriate for city officials to "debate what to do about findings."

"There are times when there is real professional discussion about specific issues and specific agencies," de Blasio said at an unrelated news conference. "That's normal. But never an attempt in any way to undermine an investigation."

Peters' letter, though, describes efforts to at least suppress findings critical of the de Blasio administration — including a bombshell November 2017 report detailing NYCHA's failure to inspect apartments for lead paint.

According to the letter, de Blasio personally called Peters in January 2017 to ask that he not release a report slamming the Administration for Children's Services. When Peters said the department had an obligation to make its findings public, the mayor accused him of "trying to bring his administration 'down,'" then said he was hanging up "before I say something I shouldn't," the letter says.

Former First Deputy Mayor Tony Shorris also asked Peters to keep other reports under wraps, according to the letter.

On Nov. 7, 2017 — the day de Blasio was elected to a second term — Shorris asked Peters over the phone not to release the NYCHA report and said Peters was obligated as a commissioner to comply, the letter says.

On an April 2017 call, Shorris asked that a report detailing the Department of Correction's misuse of government cars be withheld "because, in part, it would be embarrassing to the DOC Commissioner," the letter says. Peters wrote that other people later told him de Blasio and his staff "felt (he) should be more 'loyal.'"

Shorris and Corporation Counsel Zachary Carter did not object when the police official showed off his gun at a 2016 meeting about the NYPD's cooperation with DOI probes, Peters wrote. Shorris also called Peters an "a----e" for entreating the Police Department to produce documents, the letter says.

Peters rebutted McGovern's finding that he thought himself to be "above the law." He said he took the Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation, which oversees the Department of Education, under his control in an effort to improve it.

Neither Carter nor Dean Fuleihan, the current first deputy mayor, objected when Peters briefed him on his plans to do so in February, he wrote.

But de Blasio disputed that assertion, saying Peters "did not make clear the full ramification" of the move.

"This was not the right way to do things," de Blasio said.

(Lead image: Mark Peters appears before the City Council in 2014. Photo by William Alatriste/New York City Council)