{"id":8133,"date":"2026-09-05T08:06:53","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T08:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=8133"},"modified":"2026-09-05T08:06:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T08:06:53","slug":"nyc-broke-record-keeping-rules-with-mamdanis-secret-influencer-signal-chat-mayors-top-attorney-seemingly-admits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=8133","title":{"rendered":"NYC broke record-keeping rules with Mamdani’s secret influencer Signal chat, mayor’s top attorney seemingly admits"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Zo\u2019s flacks got their Signals crossed.<\/p>\n

City Hall officials broke state record-keeping rules with a secret Signal chat filled with pro-Zohran Mamdani influencers, the mayor\u2019s top attorney seemingly admitted Friday.<\/p>\n

Read more Gatekeeper of Mamdani\u2019s influencer army attacks the rich \u2014 but is actually PR princess whose granny lives in $3M condo<\/a><\/p>\n

Chief Counsel Ramzi Kassem revealed that officials took \u201ccorrective actions\u201d \u2014 but only after learning from a reporter that the message thread was set to auto-delete until last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we learned about this particular instance from reporting, the corrective actions that we took included reminding staff to disable disappearing messages,\u201d Kassem said during a security briefing for the weekend\u2019s upcoming J\u2019Ouvert and West Indian American Day festivities.<\/p>\n

The New York Times reported the influencer chats ran by Mamdani\u2019s \u201cnew media\u201d whiz Emilia Rowland, who draws a $175,000-a-year salary, were set to erase messages after she sent them.<\/p>\n

Watchdogs and critics argued the self-destructing messages not only clearly violated state law requiring public officials to maintain records, but also dovetailed with concerns that Mamdani\u2019s administration was underhandedly trying to sway public opinion.<\/p>\n

City Councilman Phil Wong is pushing a bill to provide guardrails for how New York City government taps influencers after it was revealed Mamdani\u2019s staff maintained the secret chat feeding online personalities administration talking points.<\/p>\n

\u201cCouncil members are racing to introduce legislation because this is one of the biggest scandals we\u2019ve seen out of City Hall, and the administration calling it a \u2018faux scandal\u2019 after they royally screwed up only makes it worse,\u201d he told The Post on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlatantly using taxpayer dollars and government resources for a propaganda machine is a huge red flag, and the Council needs to come down hard on it because New York City has a mayor, not a king.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani isn\u2019t the first New York pol to potentially run afoul of record-keeping and transparency laws.<\/p>\n

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio had to cough up emails with his closest private advisers in 2017 after a lawsuit from The Post and NY1.<\/p>\n

Read more Revoking NEA\u2019s charter is a good step toward holding teachers\u2019 unions accountable for failing kids<\/a><\/p>\n

And former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a shared nemesis of both Mamdani and de Blasio\u2019s, and his staff drew fire for using BlackBerry smartphones to avoid digital paper trails.<\/p>\n

Criminal attorney Cory H. Morris, who handles lawsuits over public records violations, said the use of Signal \u2014 an encrypted messaging app that prominently features disappearing messages \u2014 implies Mamdani\u2019s staff is sharing communications they don\u2019t want the public to see.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not innocuous,\u201d Morris told The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are trying to evade the records law by using something that destroys the records, or for that matter, that doesn\u2019t keep a record.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Watchdogs at good government group Reinvent Albany had mixed view of Mamdani\u2019s influencer list. They said using influencers, whether paid or not, can be an effective way to market programs and policies to New Yorkers \u2014 although they argued the collaboration should be voluntarily disclosed.<\/p>\n

But city officials shouldn\u2019t use instant messaging apps such as Signal to communicate with the public, precisely because of transparency concerns, the watchdogs said.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

John Kaehny, the group\u2019s executive director, said he was inclined to believe City Hall officials are more inexperienced than sinister.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tend at this point not to see anything nefarious at all with the Mamdani City Hall, but it is, at best, a lack of professionalism and lack of basic standards and training, and it\u2019s very sloppy,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf they continue and they persist with using Signal and other instant messaging stuff, then it\u2019ll be about more than that it will be about trying to keep things secret,\u201d Kaehny added.<\/p>\n

Read more I\u2019m on the spectrum \u2014 and so are you! Definition of autism so broad that it\u2019s meaningless<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not going to be an excuse that \u2018we\u2019re new\u2019 for very much longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Additional reporting by Vaughn Golden and Kyle Schnitzer<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

City Hall broke record-keeping rules by using a secret, auto-deleting Signal chat with influencers, Chief Counsel Ramzi Kassem admitted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metro"],"yoast_head":"\nNYC broke record-keeping rules with Mamdani's secret influencer Signal chat, mayor's top attorney seemingly admits - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=8133\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NYC broke record-keeping rules with Mamdani's secret influencer Signal chat, mayor's top attorney seemingly admits - 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