Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is reportedly poised to elevate a deeply controversial figure to one of the most powerful legal posts in his administration. According to the New York Post, Ramzi Kassem—a lawyer who has defended an al Qaeda terrorist and a radical anti-Israel activist at Columbia—is the leading candidate for Chief Counsel.
Kassem is already a part of Mamdani’s inner circle, serving as a legal affairs adviser on the transition team. He also teaches law at the City University of New York, further underscoring the ideological extremism he intends to bring into City Hall.
Kassem, 47, was one of the attorneys who defended Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born leader of the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and earmarked for deportation. However, after 104 days in a detention camp judges ruled he should be released.
In addition to Khalil, Kassem helped to defend terrorist Ahmed al-Darbi, an al Qaeda member who was convicted in 2017 of bombing a French oil tanker, the Limburg, off the coast of Yemen in 2002.
“Kassem’s appointment to corp counsel wouldn’t sit well with the Jewish community,” said Ken Frydman, a Democratic political operative.
“Everyone’s entitled to legal representation…even Mahmoud Khalil. But that doesn’t mean Ramzi Kassem had to represent him,” he added to The Post.
Kassem’s history leaves little mystery about where his sympathies lie. Born in Syria, he immersed himself in anti-Israel activism while at Columbia Law School, where records show he attended on a fellowship funded by members of the Soros family’s left-wing activist network.
His hostility toward Israel surfaced early and often in the pages of the Columbia Spectator. In a 1999 letter to the editor, Kassem complained that calling a sandwich an “Israeli wrap” was offensive to Muslims and Arabs. In other columns, he went much further, accusing Israel of engaging in “a clear case of ethnic cleansing.” In a 1998 article, he claimed Jews arrived in the Middle East “with the intention of conquering the land” and dismissed the idea of a two-state solution, writing that it “is not viable, nor is it desirable.”
Taken together, the writings paint a clear picture of an activist mindset that would now be positioned at the very center of City Hall’s legal operation.
In 2009, Kassem founded a legal clinic at CUNY, which offers free legal representation to Muslims and other communities in New York City. The nonprofit, Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR) is largely funded by progressive philanthropist George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, which have given the clinic more than $3 million, public records show.
It should come as no surprise that he also served in the Biden administration as a senior policy advisor on immigration issues.
He isn’t the only controversial attorney up for the top spot. The Post previously revealed that self-touted “social justice attorney” Steven Banks was on the shortlist for Corporation Counsel in what insiders worried would bring too much of an activist mentality to the role, which is the primary attorney for every agency in the city.
The controversial Council on American Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights group in the US, honored Kassem with an award in September for his work defending Khalil. Both Texas and Florida have recently designated CAIR a foreign terrorist organization.
Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York City was bad enough on its own. Now he’s stocking his administration with radicals, as if he’s determined to confirm every warning critics made about what his tenure would look like. Instead of tempering those concerns, he’s validating them—one appointment at a time.
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