In a victory speech last week, newly elected Bronx DA Darcel Clark pledged, “We will aggressively pursue public corruption.”
Do tell.
Clark, of course, “won” the office via perfectly legal corruption: Sitting DA Robert Johnson waited until after the primary (in which, as a longtime incumbent, he ran unopposed) to announce he was retiring.
This timing let the Bronx Democratic county committee — that is, the local machine — do two things:
- “Reward” Johnson with a judicial appointment (from which he can earn a salary and rake in a pension from his DA service).
- Handpick a candidate for the general election — Clark. No other Democrat could try for the party’s nomination, and no Republican or minor-party candidate stood a chance in the overwhelmingly Democratic borough.
Notably, the first politician Clark thanked in her remarks was Speaker Carl Heastie — county party chief for years, until he succeeded now-on-trial Shelly Silver as leader of the Assembly.
So, a machine candidate thanks her machine patron — then vows to root out “public corruption.”
Don’t hold your breath.
But hey, Clark takes office Jan. 1. Perhaps she’ll be her own person by then.
