Big Apple taxpayers are footing the bill for a new top city lawyer who says his No. 1 priority is going after President Trump.
“The city and nation are facing a president that’s just tough on the most vulnerable and one of the things the department has been doing and I would like to advance is focusing on affirmative litigation,” said new corporation counsel Jim Johnson, 58, as Mayor Bill de Blasio introduced him to reporters Thursday.
“Taking those cases on that will push back and reset the balance of the relationship between the government and its people,” Johnson said about his appointment.
Johnson made the remarks after a reporter asked what his priorities would be in the $243,000-a-year job leading an agency that handles over 70,000 legal matters annually.
The bulk of the department’s casework is defensive– fending off thousands of civil suits ranging from trip and falls on city sidewalks to allegations of police misconduct. Just a handful of actions, like the ones filed against the president, are affirmative.
The area’s usual litigator is the state’s attorney general, a publicly elected post.
The former Clinton-era Treasury Department official insisted his mission wasn’t personal.
“The strategy … is not directed at him as a citizen or private property owners but it’s directed to policy,” he said. “We’re not about trying to extract revenge, this is about justice.”
De Blasio, who earlier this week threatened to sue Trump if the president cut food stamps, also politicized the department when he introduced Johnson.
“The Law Department is often the first line of defense, the Law Department is often the place that can save the people of New York City from some really dangerous federal policies,” de Blasio said.
His administration is battling Trump on multiple fronts, including by suing to block the White House from imposing a rule change that would make it easier to deny green cards and visas to immigrants seeking financial assistance.
He denied Johnson’s announcement was made to short-circuit the City Council that could get a say in who’s appointed corporation counsel if a ballot proposal passes next week.
Most recently Johnson worked for New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy as a special counsel focusing on Atlantic City, after his own failed run for the statehouse.