Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has selected a controversial attorney for a senior City Hall role, tapping Ramzi Kassem — a law professor and member of his legal transition team — as the leading candidate for chief counsel, sources told The New York Post.
Kassem, who previously defended an al Qaeda terrorist and Mahmoud Khalil, a radical anti-Israel campus leader at Columbia later released from ICE detention, would serve as the mayor’s top legal adviser. The terrorist was 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.”
Kassem, a Syrian-born lawyer, also took part in anti-Israel protests at Columbia University, where he attended law school on a fellowship funded by Soros-linked left-wing activists, records show.
In a 1999 letter to the Columbia Spectator, he objected to a menu item called an “Israeli wrap,” calling it offensive to Muslims and Arabs. In other columns, Kassem accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing,” wrote that Jews came to the Middle East “with the intention of conquering the land,” and argued that a two-state solution was neither viable nor desirable.
In 2009, Kassem launched a legal clinic at CUNY providing free representation to Muslims and other New York communities. The nonprofit Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR) has received more than $3 million from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and at least $1 million from MacKenzie Scott, according to public records. In 2022, the Biden administration appointed Kassem as a senior immigration policy adviser.
🎥 In October, Mahmoud Khalil’s lawyer, Ramzi Kassem, spoke in a Zoom meeting to advise pro-Hamas protesters on who should break the law—and just how far they could go—based on their immigration status and the risks of legal consequences.
⚖️This week, Kassem agreed to defend… pic.twitter.com/bGPTECY1fb
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) March 15, 2025
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