NEW YORK — Hours after Mayor Zohran Mamdani vowed to release New York City documents about the toxins swirling above ground zero in the days after 9/11 in time for the 25th anniversary of the attacks, city lawyers asked a judge to quash a lawsuit requesting the same papers, the New York Daily News has learned.

In court documents filed in Manhattan Supreme Court last Tuesday, city attorneys said the Freedom of Information Law lawsuit should be dismissed against the mayor’s office and the city Law Department because “both agencies conducted reasonable and diligent searches” and “no responsive records were located following those searches.”

The city’s response also claims that the lawsuit, filed by attorney Andrew Carboy for 9/11 Health Watch, survivors of 9/11 illnesses and families of those who died of 9/11 illnesses, is premature because the search for the documents “remains ongoing.”

“(The lawsuit) seeks judicial review before the agency has completed its administrative review and rendered a final determination,” city attorneys said in their motion to dismiss.

City officials said they filed the motion to dismiss after Carboy and his team wouldn’t agree to a continuance.

“The city has committed to reviewing millions of documents and releasing information to the public to provide answers that have been lingering for nearly 25 years, but that cannot happen overnight,” mayoral spokesman Sam Raskin said. “In this case, the city asked to adjourn and the litigants refused, so the case should be dismissed while the review proceeds.”

Carboy and his team filed the FOIL request three years ago, seeking to learn what city official knew about the dangers of air quality at ground zero and when they knew it.

The dismissal was filed just hours after Mamdani announced that $34 million had been added to the city’s budget so the law department could create an online portal for people to access documents about post-9/11 air quality and health risks.

“For too long, New Yorkers who have become sick have had to fight for information that should have been theirs from the very beginning,” Mamdani said. “We will provide the transparency that New Yorkers living with post-9/11 health concerns deserve.”

The first documents will be available in the portal by the 25th anniversary of 9/11 in September, Mamdani said.

The $34 million is more than eight times the $4 million that had been earmarked for the city’s Department of Investigation’s probe into what the city knew about the airborne toxic contaminants while the city assured the public that the air quality was “safe and acceptable.”

Carboy was stunned by the city’s attempts to dismiss his lawsuit, especially after Mamdani promised to be the first mayor in five administrations to be transparent about 9/11 documents.

“The current administration is treating the public like morons,” Carboy said. “The days and months after 9/11 were the most successful part of Mayor (Rudolph) Giuliani’s career, the touchstone of his international fame, and the official position of the mayor’s office is that none of those records exist?”

“It’s like saying America was founded but we can’t find the Declaration of Independence,” he added.

Now Carboy and other 9/11 advocates wonder if the upcoming online portal will be flooded with irrelevant documents with a peripheral connections to 9/11 and not documents about air quality tests at ground zero.

“Given the importance of this issue, nothing less than full disclosure is what all of us is owed,” Carboy said.

Benjamin Chevat, the executive director of 9/11 Health Watch, agrees.

“(We) would be happy to applaud the mayors’ action, but we still have questions concerning the Law Department’s intentions,” he said. “We still remain hopeful that Mayor Mamdani can be the mayor that will answer the question: what did the city know about the health hazards posed by World Trade Center contaminants and when did it learn that information?”

Carboy found the city’s reasoning “perplexing.”

“After years of delaying congressional inquiries and the request for documents from 911 Health Watch, the mayor’s office needs additional time?” said Carboy.

“They need to get their stories straight. We have more questions than answers.”

After first claiming they had no documents on 9/11 toxins, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection suddenly found 68 boxes of materials in November after Carboy and his team sued the city. A third of the boxes were discovered during a remodeling project and “carpet installation” at the city’s Department of Environmental Protection offices, city attorneys said in May.

A judge has allowed Carboy to depose DEP officials who denied repeated FOIL requests for the documents.

Every mayor between Giuliani and Eric Adams has fought requests for the release of any 9/11 studies and documents, claiming they couldn’t find them. The city has also repeatedly said it was worried about a barrage of lawsuits from survivors and first responders suffering from 9/11 illnesses if the documents were released.

More than 9,000 people have now died from 9/11-related illnesses, nearly three times the number killed on Sept. 11, 2001 itself.

More than 140,000 first responders and survivors are enrolled in the U.S. Center for Disease Control’s WTC Health Program, which provides health care benefits for medical conditions related to exposure to the toxins that hung over ground zero. Out of that number, about 81,000 have a certified condition linked to the toxins.

The unearthed documents won’t likely cause a flurry of lawsuits since first responders and survivors who are receiving help from the WTC Health Program and the 9/11 Victim Compensation fund have already signed waivers agreeing not to sue over their illnesses. More than 100,000 have signed these waivers, officials said.

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