John Catsimatidis held a press conference this afternoon to exchange endorsements with several Queens Republican candidates for City Council. I asked Catsimatidis for his thoughts on why all four current Republican members of the City Council have endorsed Joe Lhota, rather than Catsimatidis. Catsimatidis responded by discussing “a few several investigations” into “certain situations going on where there were threats made on people losing their city jobs if they didn’t do certain things certain ways.” When asked why he was privy to such investigations, Catsimatidis replied “maybe I testified”.
Background: Two of the four current Republican City Council members, Dan Halloran and Eric Ulrich, are from Queens. Halloran has been charged by the U.S. Attorney with taking a bribe from a Queens Democratic State Senator in exchange for helping that Democrat get on the Republican mayoral primary ballot. Ulrich has been in a long-running Queens County Republican feud in which Ulrich and others are bitterly opposed to the Queens County Republican Chairman, Phil Ragusa. Ragusa supports Catsimatidis for mayor.