Mayor Bloomberg Exposed On the Stand

[xchrom]

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/10/mayor_bloomberg_29.php


Jane Rosenberg


Just being there was humbling. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg LP and the city's wealthiest citizen, sat in criminal court answering a hot series of questions about just the sort of shady political maneuvers and corrupting influence of money that have frequently been the subject of his political contempt.

Bloomberg, who can be famously testy when questioned, kept his composure on the stand, but despite staying on script his testimony was politically devastating - exposing the mayor's magical thinking, in which money corrupts, except for his money; and politics corrupt, except for his politics.

Bloomberg was there as witness for the prosecution in the trial of John Haggerty, the political operative accused of pocketing nearly a million dollars of the $1.2 million that Bloomberg had given as a "gift" to the Independence Party, which was supposed to spend $1.1 million of it on so-called "ballot security" for his 2009 reelection campaign, with the remaining $100,000 as an actual gift. The contribution was made to the party's so-called "housekeeping" committee, which allowed Bloomberg to skirt the state's campaign finance limits, but also meant that it couldn't be used on his behalf or that of any single candidate, and that Bloomberg couldn't dictate how it was spent.

Haggerty's lawyers have hardly even bothered to deny that he took the money. Instead, they've argued that the mayor having given the gift lost control over the money so that he has no standing to complain about how it was spent, tried to put the mayor on trial by constructing an underdog narrative with the big crook getting out-conned by the little one.

[yurbud]

1. how does this guy stay in office?