“We believed it was illegal,” said Richard Schaffer, head of the Suffolk Democrats.

Schaffer says because the money was meant for Esposito, it was an attempt to evade contribution limits, the same violation a state Board of Elections official says Mayor Bill de Blasio’s team committed in directing money to three upstate races around the same time.

“The fact that he told me, ‘We want you to spend it directly on Adrienne Esposito,’ that makes it illegal,” Schaffer said.

Schaffer says he told the union no thanks, but got a check anyway, for $100,000. His committee rejected it, writing, “we are unable to deposit your check and are compelled to return it to you.”

“They were annoyed,” Schaffer said.

Much like de Blasio now, the union, New York State United Teachers, insisted the move was legal and told NY1 it has a longstanding record of meticulously adhering to the law.

Eight days into his administration, he got a letter from the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, the agency overseeing ethical conduct for local elected officials. It granted the mayor approval to fundraise for his newly established nonprofit group that was pushing his agenda, the Campaign for One New York.

Of course, there was a catch. De Blasio could not solicit donations for that nonprofit from “anyone with a matter pending or about to be pending” before the city. The letter went on to say quote: “It is the Board’s conclusion that, as applied to the mayor, the ‘agency’ referred to is the entire executive branch . . .”

So more than two years later, NY1 examined all of the donations to the Campaign for One New York, which is now the subject of a federal investigation. We found that at least 60 donations came from an entity that had business with the city, or a company that was directly lobbying the city or was a union with a city contract.

In some cases, action by the de Blasio adminsitration occurred within days or months of the donation. For instance, the city’s health care workers’ union SEIU Local 1199 gave $250,000 in March of 2014. Three months later, the union signed a new city contract.

Or take real estate. A developer won a variance to build a commerical and residential project on a skinny TriBeCa lot in June of 2015. Three days later, the company gave $10,000 to the Campaign for One New York.

[. . .]

“It is an honor to be cooked by the leader of the free world,” de Blasio said on Hot 97 Monday morning when the hosts mentioned the Obama joke.

During his monologue, Obama referenced the controversy when he said: “I do apologize, you know I was a little late tonight. I was running on C.P.T., which stands for ‘jokes that white people should not make.'”

De Blasio said he enjoyed the president’s joke.

[. . .]

A handful of sophisticated New York developers write big campaign checks to rural backwoods political committees miles upstate.

Upon closer inspection, however, it all becomes clear.

The developers were told the money wasn’t meant to help elect some yahoo constable in Moosebreath Corners, N.Y. Instead, it would help Mayor de Blasio in his quixotic quest to flip the GOP-controlled state Senate to the Democrats.

And the developers who chose to give just happened to be seeking — or had in the past received — lucrative benefits from the de Blasio administration such as zoning changes and tax breaks.