City Council Speaker Julie Menin came out Wednesday in support of Nadia Shihata, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s nominee to run the Department of Investigation, just one day before a confirmation vote that had been wobbling.
Menin’s office said the Speaker is backing Shihata “based on her qualifications and her stated commitment to independent leadership,” a Council spokesperson said. “Rooting out corruption and fraud in government is a top priority for the Speaker and she believes Ms. Shihata’s 11 years as a prosecutor in New York’s Eastern District makes her well positioned to take on that fight head on.”
That’s not nothing. Shihata can’t take the DOI commissioner job without a majority Council vote, and her path to confirmation had gotten rocky at an April 6 hearing before the rules committee. Members came in with sharp questions on two points: the $700 in donations she gave to Mamdani’s 2025 campaign and her personal friendship with Ramzi Kassem, the mayor’s general counsel.
She didn’t run from it. Shihata acknowledged canvassing for Mamdani once during the 2025 race and confirmed she’s known Kassem since law school graduation, sees him socially from time to time and sought his professional advice after she left federal prosecution. Then came the detail that stiffened a few spines in the room: Kassem himself had reached out to her and asked if she’d be interested in applying for the DOI post.
Council members weren’t thrilled with that.
The DOI commissioner has traditionally kept distance from City Hall’s political operation. Jocelyn Strauber, who held the job before Shihata’s nomination, helped steer investigations that produced charges against Mayor Eric Adams and multiple members of his administration. That history is sitting right there on the table as the Council weighs what it wants from the next commissioner.
Shihata told the committee she’d pursue any investigation “without fear or favor,” including any matter that might reach the mayor, Kassem or anyone else in Mamdani’s circle. Whether that was persuasive enough to lock in the votes wasn’t clear heading into Thursday’s session.
Social media made things messier. Councilmember David Carr, Republican of Staten Island and Brooklyn, pressed Shihata on posts she said she’d made private at some point after leaving the U.S. Attorney’s office in 2022. At least one post hadn’t been made private before the April 6 hearing, according to The City’s reporting on the nomination.
Defenders of the pick have real material to work with. Eleven years as a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York isn’t a line you pad a resume with. Menin leaned on it directly in announcing her support, and there’s a reason for that. Former Eastern District prosecutors don’t come cheap or common, and the credential carries weight in the building.
Still, the optics of Kassem personally tapping Shihata for the role she now seeks confirmation to fill haven’t gone away. The Council’s concern isn’t abstract: an independent DOI commissioner is one of the few institutional checks on a mayor’s conduct, and members want more than a promise that she won’t pull punches.
Shihata’s nomination was formally submitted February 12, 2026, and drew scrutiny almost immediately given her ties to both Mamdani and Kassem. The confirmation process moved through the spring with the April 6 rules committee hearing marking the sharpest public examination she faced.
Menin’s endorsement doesn’t guarantee anything, but it reframes the vote. The Speaker carries influence with a significant chunk of the 51-member Council, and members who’ve been on the fence about whether to back a nominee chosen “based on qualifications” now have the Speaker’s cover if they vote yes.
The Council was set to vote Thursday.