Bill de Blasio (Photo: Facebook)

Public advocate and likely 2013 mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio jumped headfirst into Mayor Bloomberg and Congressman Jerry Nadler’s Occupy Wall Street spat. The testy tit for tat, which began at a press conference yesterday when Politicker asked Mayor Bloomberg about the congressman’s call for a federal investigation into police conduct in the Occupy Wall Street raid last month. ”Representative Nadler I know very well and, in most things, I agree with him. I think this case–that’s ridiculous,” Mayor Bloomberg said. Congressman Nadler responded with a statement of his own in which he urged the mayor to stop “spewing nonsense and so wildly contradicting himself.” Mr. de Blasio took Congressman Nadler’s side in the quarrel. 

Mr. de Blasio posted our post about the exchange on his Facebook page yesterday along with a note referencing the infamous Awl story about reporters being arrested while covering the raid.

“No, Mayor Bloomberg. What’s ridiculous is arresting 26 members of the press for doing their job. Congressman Nadler is right,” Mr. de Blasio wrote.

Spokesmen for the mayor’s office maintain “just five of the ’26 arrested reporters’ are actually credentialed reporters.”

Mr. de Blasio’s slap at City Hall is unsurprising. In the aftermath of the controversial Occupy Wall Street raid, Mr. de Blasio and the other likely mayoral hopefuls all piled on with criticisms of police handling of the eviction. Howard Wolfson, Mayor Bloomberg’s deputy for communications, subsequently slammed City Hall’s critics as “overblown and outrageous.”

Update (10:15 a.m.): A tipster informed Politicker that Mr. de Blasio isn’t the only likely mayoral candidate who responded to Mayor Bloomberg’s tiff with Congressman Nadler. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer issued a series of Tweets yesterday blasting the mayor for his comments about the call for an Occupy Wall Street investigation.

“It’s outrageous to attack Rep. Jerry Nadler nationally respected lawmaker, because he defends the civil rights of New Yorkers. These comments only underscore the city’s failure to establish a coherent funding strategy for homeland security programs,” Borough President Stringer wrote. “While we’re at it, I’m renewing my call for a federal probe of the city’s misguided stop and frisk program.”

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