City Hall isn’t concerned that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has yet to receive federal security clearance nine months into the job, his office told JNS.
“The process of obtaining the mayor’s federal security clearance is ongoing and proceeding within the currently prevailing timeline for one,” Sam Raskin, a spokesman for Mamdani, told JNS.
“The New York City Police Department regularly briefs the mayor, as appropriate, on non-federally classified investigations and information,” Raskin said.
The clearance would allow Mamdani to receive federally classified information related to terrorism and other national-security threats.
Asked about the process at a press conference on Monday, the mayor said virtually the same things that Raskin told JNS.
“The mayor has not yet received his federal security clearance, which is not unusual at this point in a mayoral administration,” the mayor’s office told JNS.
Bill de Blasio received his federal security clearance in October 2015, nearly two years after taking office as mayor, according to the mayor’s office. “Multiple senior officials in City Hall and the NYPD hold federal security clearances,” City Hall told JNS.
“We will continue to move forward,” Mamdani said at the press conference.
JNS asked Raskin if Mamdani thinks that the Trump administration is treating him unfairly with respect to the federal security clearance.
The revelation that the mayor still lacks that federal clearance comes two weeks after Mamdani joined New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and law-enforcement officials to accuse the Trump administration of endangering New Yorkers by withholding $87 million in federal counterterrorism funding from the state.
Mamdani and Hochul said that the money supports bomb squads, intelligence operations and other counterterrorism programs. Raskin told JNS at the time that NYPD officers “work around the clock to make sure every New Yorker is safe and will continue to do so regardless of the federal government’s decisions.”
The clearance question also comes as New York City prepares to host world leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for the United Nations General Assembly in Turtle Bay. Netanyahu is expected to address the global body on Sept. 24.
Mamdani was asked on Monday if he stood by his previous comments encouraging New Yorkers, who oppose the Israeli premier, to protest.
Some in the New York City Police Department have reportedly said that the mayor’s comments about the Israeli leader’s visit to New York could endanger cops.
Mamdani campaigned on having Netanyahu arrested but has more recently admitted that he lacks the legal authority to do so. He has asked federal agencies to arrest the Israeli prime minister.
“I just want to be very clear,” Mamdani said at the press conference, of protesting the Israeli leader. “My prior remarks were that if people choose to do so, then they are able to because that is the law here in New York City.”
“I continue to leave it to New Yorkers to make their own decisions,” he said.
