De Blasio let the executive know to expect a follow-up call about the fund.
Another meeting with a real estate executive, whose firm was developing affordable housing for the city, went much the same way.
As de Blasio nears a decision this month on whether to enter the crowded Democratic field of presidential contenders, his history of questionable fundraising tactics, and the subsequent investigations into them, will likely weigh on his chances.
And those two interactions with the real estate executives, which occurred in 2015, are now casting a new shadow over his tenure.
The conversations were cited by the city Department of Investigation in a confidential and heavily redacted report that concluded that the mayor had solicited contributions from people who had business pending with the city, an apparent violation of the City Charter’s ethics law.
The matter was referred to the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, which has jurisdiction over potential violations of the ethics law.
But de Blasio in recent days has refused to say whether the Conflicts of Interest Board sent him a letter addressing the matter.
The board itself has said that it cannot disclose whether it even took action against the mayor because of confidentiality rules.
The secrecy surrounding the proceedings has deepened questions about how ethics are policed in his administration — and whether the officials who are supposed to evaluate conflicts of interest have their own conflicts.
The board’s five members are appointed by the mayor and approved by the City Council. Four of the five current members were appointed or reappointed by de Blasio. One of them, Fernando A. Bohorquez, a lawyer, contributed $2,675 to the mayor’s election campaign in 2013.
After de Blasio won that election, he named Bohorquez to his inaugural committee, a ceremonial position conferred on many other donors, including two who have since pleaded guilty to using contributions to bribe or seek favors from the mayor.
Bohorquez and a fellow member, Erika Thomas, are lawyers at Baker & Hostetler, a firm that has additional ties to the mayor. Thomas was appointed by de Blasio’s predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, and remains on the board as a holdover even though her term expired in 2016. That means that she serves essentially at the discretion of de Blasio, who could replace her at any time.
Employees of Baker & Hostetler have given de Blasio contributions totaling $17,515 during his two mayoral races, according to city records. Campaign finance records also show that the law firm was involved in two fundraising events for de Blasio while he campaigned for mayor in 2013, both apparently held at its Rockefeller Center offices and organized with the help of Bohorquez.
The board’s monthly meetings are frequently held in a conference room at the Baker & Hostetler offices as well.
Bohorquez said in an email that “the law does not require a public servant to be recused from matters involving an elected official to whose campaign that public servant has donated.” He refused to say if he had recused himself from the mayor’s case, “because doing so would disclose that such a case exists, in violation of the strict confidentiality restrictions in the city’s conflicts of interest law.”
Thomas did not respond to phone and email messages.
Ritchie Torres, a Bronx councilman who leads the Council Committee on Oversight and Investigations, took issue with Bohorquez’s position on the conflicts board.
“The optics of appointing a donor to the Conflicts of Interest Board is troubling,” he said, noting that he abstained from voting on Bohorquez’s reappointment last year. “It creates the appearance of impropriety, which I felt was disqualifying.”
The board’s chairman, Richard Briffault, acknowledged that the board should be concerned about the appearance of potential conflicts of interest, especially as it relates to the mayor.
“It’s a legitimate question,” he said. “Maybe we should look into changing the rules about what we’re required to disclose, and maybe more disclosure should be required of us with respect to elected officials.”
Nonetheless, Briffault refused to say whether any board members recused themselves from the case. His term expires in 2020, when the mayor will be able to reappoint or replace him.
Briffault said that restrictions built into the City Charter’s conflicts of interest law barred the board from issuing a fine or even issuing a public admonishment in de Blasio's case.
The only other action available to the board was to issue what is known as a private warning letter — an option that the board chose 62 times last year. The board, for confidentiality reasons, will not say whether that happened in the mayor’s case.
“I can say that the board took seriously its obligation and spent a considerable amount of time addressing the matter,” Briffault said.
He added that the board, prompted by the issues raised in the Department of Investigation inquiry into de Blasio’s fundraising, is working to create a formal rule that would specifically bar public officials from seeking donations to nonprofit groups from people or companies with business pending before the city.
The board is expected to approve the rule at an upcoming meeting, perhaps as early as this week.
While the board is barred from making a private warning public, de Blasio is free to do so. But he has steadfastly refused to discuss the Department of Investigation inquiry into his fundraising and he pleaded ignorance last week when asked if he had received a private warning letter from the conflicts board.
“I know what the Conflicts of Interest Board is but I don’t know what a private warning letter is,” the mayor said in response to a question at a news conference April 29. “I can’t answer you but I can have our lawyers update you.”
The following day, the mayor’s press secretary, Freddi Goldstein, was asked for the update promised by the mayor.
“Declining comment on whether or not we’ve ever received one,” Goldstein said in an email. Goldstein later explained that City Hall officials had consulted with lawyers for the city and the mayor’s private lawyer, and that she would not provide any additional information.
In 2017, federal and state prosecutors ended inquiries without bringing charges against the mayor, even as the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office concluded that some of the practices ran “contrary to the intent and spirit of the laws.”
The Department of Investigation inquiry began in 2016 and looked at whether de Blasio had violated the City Charter’s conflict of interest statute while fundraising for the Campaign for One New York, a nonprofit group he created to support his policy initiatives.
The investigation was revealed in news reports last month and Briffault confirmed in an interview last week that the board had received a referral on the inquiry from the investigation department. The department is required by law to report to the board any violations of the city conflicts of interest law that it uncovers.
The investigation department said last week, in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Law, that it sent a referral regarding the inquiry’s conclusions to the conflicts board Jan. 31, 2018. The department refused to provide the content of the referral, citing confidentiality requirements.
The department formally closed its investigation in October, suggesting that the board spent much of 2018 deliberating on what to do about the mayor’s case.
In a seeming coincidence, de Blasio sent letters to the City Council reappointing two of the board members, Bohorquez and Anthony Crowell, to new terms Jan. 31, 2018, the same day that the investigations department made its referral to the board.
The investigation department’s inquiry focused on whether de Blasio’s fundraising violated a section of the charter’s conflict of interest law that prohibits a public servant from engaging in an activity “which is in conflict with the proper discharge of his or her official duties.”
That section of the law is known as the “catchall” provision — but it comes with a Catch-22.
The charter says that no penalty can be assessed for violating the catchall provision unless the conflicts board has promulgated a rule specifically barring the conduct involved. And in the case of the mayor’s fundraising for the Campaign for One New York, no such rule existed.
The board’s lawyers advised that the board did not have the option of issuing a fine or a public warning letter.
“COIB will impose draconian penalties on the lowest of municipal employees, but will give the mayor a pass,” Torres said. “The disconnect is not lost on people.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.