NYC Mayor Used NYPD Security Detail To Run Errands

By Adam Andrzejewski for RealClearPolicy

New York City taxpayers first heard in February 2020 that they had paid for Mayor Bill de Blasio and his security detail to watch a Red Sox game in Los Angeles while he was running his soon-to-be failed presidential bid.

At the time, The New York Post estimated that the campaign trips from May 16 to Sept. 20, 2019 cost taxpayers $358,000. While a 49-page report from the city’s Department of Investigation estimated a lower cost of $319,794, it also found that de Blasio uses his NYPD detail beyond his presidential campaign to run errands during his mayoralty.

“In practice, what is happening is that it’s not security,” said DOI Commissioner Margaret Garnett, the New York Post reported. “It’s essentially a concierge service, primarily for Dante.”

De Blasio’s son, Dante, now 24, had declined an NYPD protection detail but then regularly requested and received rides to and from his job in Brooklyn after graduating from Yale University, the DOI report found.

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While he was a college student between 2015 and 2019, the police often accompanied him on trips to and from New Haven, the report said.

De Blasio’s daughter Chiara, now 26, also received help during her move from her Brooklyn apartment into Gracie Mansion in 2018, the DOI commissioner said.

Even one of de Blasio’s brothers was picked up from the airport and driven nearly two-hours to New Jersey to pick up a rental car, the report found.

The DOI probe found this amounted to “potential violations of the New York City Conflicts of Interest Law, lapses in best practices, corruption vulnerabilities, and inefficient uses of public resources.”

While the report cited no dollar figure for the inappropriate security costs over the years, the allegations are clear that much taxpayer money was wasted driving around de Blasio’s family on unofficial business.

Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.

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