It was 20 years ago this month when we started writing about how the toxic fallout from the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Center by Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorists was sickening and killing people. Then the politicians were named Bloomberg, Pataki and Bush. The politicians’ names have changed, but not the importance of getting to the bottom of what happened with the health catastrophe.

It’s now less than two months until the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the man running the city’s Law Department, Corporation Counsel Steve Banks, are saying all the right things, but city lawyers are still fighting disclosure in court and violating the state Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).

On June 30, Mamdani said in the City Hall rotunda: “As we prepare to mark 25 years since the horrific Sept. 11 terror attacks, we are committing more than $34 million to create a public portal that will finally release documents from across city government related to 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. We will provide the transparency that New Yorkers living with post-9/11 health concerns deserve.”

That same day, as part of the city budget agreement, Council Speaker Julie Menin published a press release saying: “The Council secured $6.25 million for the Department of Investigation (DOI), including $4 million to complete and release its long-awaited report on 9/11 toxins. The funding will help finally deliver transparency and accountability for victims’ families, survivors, first responders, and all those seeking answers on what the city knew and when.”

So why are city lawyers in court papers and in sworn depositions saying that there are no documents?

Of course there are records and it starts with the famous Harding memo, written just after 9/11 to then-Deputy Mayor Bob Harding discussing NYC’s potential liability from the 9/11 fallout. To this date, the Harding memo has never been supplied by the city to WTC health advocate Ben Chevat and his pro bono lawyers Andy Carboy and Matt McCauley, who sued the city for failure to respond to their legally-enforceable FOIL requests that we suggested be launched.

Carboy did find the Harding memo in the archives of the late Village Voice muckraker Wayne Barrett, but the city has never produced it.

Yet, as the Daily News reports in today’s edition, a city lawyer confessed during a July 1 deposition under questioning by Carboy that he denied a WTC FOIL request only because he was told to by a higher-up, not based on anything else.

So again, we ask, how can the mayor and corp counsel spend $34 million (actually $34.2 million) to publish records that don’t exist?

The truth is that the records do exist and it was only a few years ago that city lawyers told local members of Congress that they would cough up the documents if Congress passed a law shielding the city. So what were those papers?

Instead of spending $34.2 million posting copies of who knows what, most of which might be useless, just start immediately by handing over all the papers that the advocates and their lawyers are seeking and what was offered to the Congress members.

The truth will out eventually, as DOI Commissioner Nadia Shihata now has the money she needs to conduct the review as mandated by a resolution from Councilwoman Gale Brewer. Mamdani and Banks shouldn’t wait for DOI, as the clock to the 9/11 anniversary ticks away every second.

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