NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani had the ceremonial pen from Friday’s Sept. 11 executive order signing passed to his chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, a former Guantanamo Bay defense lawyer, a choice two Republican City Council members and the brother of a firefighter killed in the attacks have criticized.
Video of the moment, released by the mayor’s office, spread across conservative news sites and X over the weekend, one week before the 25th anniversary. The mayor’s office says Kassem received the pen because he drafted the orders.
Mamdani signed two orders at City Hall on Sept. 4. According to the mayor’s office, one establishes Sept. 11 as an official Day of Remembrance and Service, with moments of silence, memorial ceremonies and volunteer programs across agencies. The other updates the city’s emergency continuity planning, which the office said had not been revised since 2007.
After signing the last document, Mamdani handed the pen to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and asked, “Can you pass this?” Tisch handed it to Kassem, who had entered the Blue Room near the end of the event, according to a New York Post report published Saturday afternoon.
The mayor’s office told the Post that Kassem and his team wrote both orders. Kassem did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.
Kassem, a City University of New York law professor, was appointed chief counsel in January. He founded the school’s CLEAR clinic, which represents Muslim and immigrant clients in civil rights and national security cases, and spent years representing Guantanamo detainees. When he announced the appointment, Mamdani cited Kassem’s “commitment to defending those too often abandoned by our legal system.”
His former clients include Ahmed al-Darbi, a Saudi national who pleaded guilty before a military commission in 2014 to a role in the 2002 al-Qaida bombing of the French tanker MV Limburg. Al-Darbi later served as a cooperating witness and was repatriated in 2018. His sister was married to Khalid al-Mihdhar, a hijacker on the flight that struck the Pentagon.
Council Member Joann Ariola, a Queens Republican, called the gesture “breathtakingly tone-deaf and disrespectful,” the Post reported. “The families who lost loved ones on 9/11 have every right to be outraged,” Ariola said.
Council Member Vicki Paladino, also a Queens Republican, said Kassem’s “participation in anything related to 9/11 is an insult to every New Yorker who survived that day.”
Dennis Warchola, whose brother Michael, a firefighter with Ladder 5, died in the North Tower, told the Post, “How can you defend a guy like that who wants to do Americans or any innocent person harm?”
As of Sunday, the reporting rests on the Post’s account, since carried by RedState, PJ Media and other conservative and opinion sites. CBS New York, which covered the signing, had not reported on the pen. A Breaking911 post of the clip on X had drawn more than 600,000 views. No statewide or federal officials had commented publicly.
The episode comes amid a broader dispute over the anniversary. Some relatives of victims told the Post they plan to ignore Mamdani at the Ground Zero ceremony, and the Daily Caller reported that a petition started by Giovanni Galante, whose wife Grace was killed in the attacks, asking organizers to exclude the mayor had more than 98,000 signatures. Mamdani spokesman Jeremy Edwards said the mayor will attend and “proudly honor the families, survivors, and first responders.”