4 socialist NYC lawmakers will probably be compelled to elucidate below oath why a Republican colleague faces potential censure over alleged Islamophobic remarks — whereas they routinely make racist and libelous statements about conservatives, The Publish has realized.
Attorneys representing firebrand Councilwoman Vickie Paladino (R-Queens) in her free-speech lawsuit served Brooklyn pols Chi Ossé, Shahana Hanif and Sandy Nurse, and Tiffany Cabán of Queens with subpoenas Tuesday. The subpoenas require them to testify within the case on April 17 earlier than Manhattan Supreme Courtroom Choose Sabrina Kraus, in response to confidential authorized papers examined by the newspaper.
The 4 far-left pols have an extended historical past of raging with out consequence towards white individuals and portray their enemies — together with President Trump, Republicans, and NYPD cops — as “white supremacists” and “racists,” stated Paladino’s lawyer Jim Walden.
Ossé referred to as Trump a “pedophile” a number of instances final month as a result of the president is talked about in the Epstein recordsdata.
In 2023, Ossé made a bigoted comment a few Massive Apple contractor convicted of insurance coverage fraud, claiming throughout a Council listening to that town ought to have by no means employed the landscaping firm as a result of its proprietor’s Italian final identify is a “pink flag.”
The White Home lately referred to as out Ossé for spewing “egregious lies,” however the Brooklyn pol was by no means reprimanded by the Council. Former Council Minority Chief Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) filed an ethics criticism towards Ossé over the anti-Italian slight, however it additionally fell on deaf ears.
The 4 radical lawmakers, together with 4 different council Dems —Manhattan’s Speaker Julie Menin, Brooklyn’s Alexa Aviles and Shekar Krishnan, and Queens’ Nantasha Williams—had been individually subpoenaed to show over all communications they’ve made with different events since Nov. 15 regarding Paladino and her social media posts.
Councilwoman Sandra Ung — a Queens Democrat who chairs the Council’s Committee on Guidelines, Privileges, Elections, Requirements and Ethics – was subpoenaed handy over transcripts, identities of complaining witnesses and different information associated to a March 2 assembly she oversaw, the place the panel introduced it was pursuing “disorderly conduct” expenses towards Paladino.
Failure to adjust to subpoenas may end up in contempt-of-court expenses, which can embrace fines and jail time.
Council spokesman Yoav Gonen insisted “the subpoenas are improper” and that town’s Regulation Division “is transferring to quash them.”
The ethics panel’s motion towards Paladino got here following a current sequence of posts she made on X calling for the expulsion of Muslims from western nations within the wake of December’s antisemitic Bondi Seashore terrorist assault in Australia.
In one other put up, she appeared to query the citizenship of one in every of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s appointments.
“New York is below overseas occupation,” Paladino wrote in February, following Mamdani’s appointment of Faiza Ali — a born-and-raised Brooklynite and baby of Pakistani immigrants — to be his chief immigration officer.
“There’s actually no different method to put it,” she stated. “Does this administration have one single precise American in it?”
Former Councilman Robert Holden, a conservative Queens Democrat, submitted a signed affidavit to the court docket Tuesday, saying he believes penalizing Paladino over her remarks could be “unprecedented and hypocritical,” including it’s motivated by “unhealthy religion and political retaliation.”
His eight-page temporary cites a sequence of examples the place different council members made remarks on social media that had been “offensive, derogatory or racist.”
They included Cabán in April 2022 claiming a ninth-grade woman from Staten Island “is sick of being patrolled and supervised by white cops,” Hanif in June 2022 accusing cops of “racist harassment” of avenue distributors, and Nurse bluntly quipping in February 2023 that “one factor you possibly can at all times rely on is white women, white ladying.”
Cabán’s remarks had been much more pointed on social media earlier than she joined the Council in December 2021, together with 10 months earlier when she accused GOP pols in DC of “upholding white supremacy & racialized capitalism” following the Jan. 6, 2021 riots.
None had been disciplined as a result of the First Modification protects them — so Paladino also needs to be protected, Holden stated.
The solely councilmember to ever be expelled was Bronx lawmaker Andy King in 2020, however that was solely after the Democrat was hit by a 3rd set of ethics expenses saying he misused authorities funds and mistreated his workers.
“Councilmember Paladino seems to be ahead to her day in court docket, the place the unconstitutionality of this ‘disciplinary’ cost will probably be uncovered and different councilmembers will get a grilling for his or her offensive language — with no expenses filed towards them — exhibiting the utter hypocrisy of this complete charade,” stated Walden.
