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NYC mayor under new pressure to break Trump’s golf deal with city, scrap Saudi-backed event

Politics
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is seen during a New York State Financial Control Board meeting on September 6, 2022.

CNN  — 

A little more than a month before a Saudi-backed women’s golf series is scheduled to hold a New York City tournament at a course run by former President Donald Trump’s company, top City Council officials are pushing Mayor Eric Adams’ administration to void the city’s contract with the Trump Organization and scrap the event.

In a letter this week to Adams and Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Council Member Shekar Krishnan, who chairs the council’s Committee on Parks and Recreation, urged the mayor’s administration to “terminate the license” allowing Trump’s company to run the Bronx golf course, a move that they say “would also cancel the tournament.”

The tournament, which is slated for the middle of October at the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point, has provoked an outcry from family members of 9/11 victims, who are angry that the city is welcoming the Aramco Team Series, which is financed by Saudi Arabia’s state oil company.

Allegations that the Saudi government was complicit in the attacks on September 11, 2001, have long been the subject of dispute in Washington. Fifteen of the 19 al Qaeda terrorists who hijacked four planes were Saudi nationals, but the Saudi government has denied any involvement in the attacks.

Advocacy groups, citing 9/11 and the Saudi government’s human rights record, have sought to scrap the upcoming golf event and to ban other aligned enterprises, such as the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour. (Trump hosted an LIV Golf tournament at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, in July.)

Adams and Krishnan argue that the Trump Organization’s ongoing legal issues make it “untenable for the City to continue to do business with this operator.”

“Public parkland should not be in the hands of Donald Trump or the Trump Organization,” they wrote.

Eric Trump, a top executive at the Trump Organization and a son of the former President, said in a statement that the city had been cooperating ahead of the tournament.

“We are incredibly proud to host the finest women’s professional golfers in the world at Trump Ferry Point, NYC,” he said. “A big thank you to the City of New York and to the Parks Department for their support and approval.”

This is not the first time Adams has come under pressure to cancel the tournament.

Late last month, families of 9/11 victims petitioned him to withdraw approval of the event. But Adams’ administration has repeatedly pushed back, arguing that it cannot legally stop the event, which was formalized during former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s time in office, or break its contract with the Trump Organization.

In a statement to CNN this week, City Hall called the situation “frustrating” and criticized the Trump Organization for agreeing to host the tournament “knowing how much pain it would cause New Yorkers.” But it argued that the mayor’s hands were tied.

“What Speaker Adams and Councilmember Krishnan are advocating would require the city to pay up to thirty million dollars to the Trump Organization, an outcome no one should want – despite our shared desire to see the Trump Organization removed from the golf course,” said Maxwell Young, a spokesman for the mayor.

Michael Cardozo, the former head of the city’s law department and now a partner at Proskauer, told CNN in August that the city was “obligated to comply with the express terms of the contract it has entered into” and although it does not want the golf tournament to take place, it does not have “the right to prohibit the Trump Organization from allowing the tournament to be held.”

At the same time, Brett Eagleson, president of 9/11 Justice, a victims’ advocacy group, called on the mayor “to stay away from Ground Zero and any and all other 9/11 memorials and events unless his office rescinds its approval” of the Saudi-backed tournament, which is expected to feature at least a handful of top female golf stars.

On Friday, Eagleson in a statement thanked the City Council leaders for their new efforts to halt the tournament and said 9/11 Justice would back “any methods used to block the Trump hosted and Saudi funded Aramco Golf Series from happening in New York City this fall.”

“Given the newly declassified FBI documents per the Biden Executive Order which further demonstrates Saudi Government complicity in 9/11 we believe every effort should be exhausted to stop this tournament,” Eagleson said.

Golf Saudi, owner of the Aramco Team Series, sponsors a monthly 30-minute golf show on CNN International.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated whether New York City can prohibit the Trump Organization from holding the Aramco Team Series at its Bronx golf course.