Defend terrorists and cop-killers, and you can be a Mamdani legal adviser

Defend terrorists and cop-killers, and you can be a Mamdani legal adviser

Any association with “the Epstein world” renders you unfit for even an advisory role at Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s City Hall — but similar ties to actual terrorists is no bar to even a top position.

Seriously: City Hall says it rejected the one Jew it had considered for a panel that recommends potential judges on the grounds that John Leventhal had been an appellate lawyer for Ghislaine Maxwell and even — horrors! — “collected legal fees as such.”

The mayor says he doesn’t want his judicial-assessment team tainted by the “loss of faith” in the legal system represented by someone in “the Epstein world.”

Hmm: The mayor’s chief counsel offers confidential, high-level legal and strategic guidance, and the guy Mamdani chose for the job is Ramzi Kassem, who has seemingly spent his career defending al Qaeda terrorists.

Is it any wonder many 9/11 families don’t want the mayor anywhere near Ground Zero for the 25th anniversary ceremonies?

Kassem waged a tenacious defense of al Qaeda stalwart Ahmed al-Darbi, who bombed a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen in 2002, and did more legal work on behalf of a dozen other Guantanamo detainees.

He also represented Columbia cheer-for-Hamas deportee-in-waiting Mahmoud Khalil, who probably agrees with Kassem’s long-held belief that Jews came to the Middle East “with the intention of conquering the land.”

Mamdani also had no problem naming a lawyer who specializes in defending cop-killers to the judicial-advisory board.

As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, nominee Soffiyah Elijah represented notorious Brinks-robbery murderers Marilyn Buck and Sundiata Acoli in court, and writes passionately in defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Mutulu Shakur and a shocking number of other cop-killers, whom she calls “political prisoners.”

Leventhal had a long and reasonably distinguished career as a state judge; the idea that he’s beyond the pale because one of his former clients is a terrible person, when the likes of Kassem and Elijah are just fine, is simply laughable.

The mayor plainly has a litmus test for his legal appointments: Jewish lawyers aren’t welcome, but the door is wide open for advocates for the most violent radicals.

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