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Sunday, May 10, 2026
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NYC Mayor Mamdani Will Attend 9/11 Ceremony — After His Chief Counsel Defended an Al-Qaeda Terrorist

Three days before the 25th anniversary of September 11, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed executive orders designating the date as a citywide "Day of Remembrance and Service." Afterwards he asked officials to hand the ceremonial pen from the signing to his Chief Counsel, Ramzi Kassem, a former defense lawyer for Al-Qaeda.

Kassem previously represented Guantanamo detainee Ahmed al-Darbi, brother-in-law of a Flight 77 hijacker. Al-Darbi was an Al-Qaeda operative charged with plotting to blow up commercial ships, including the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker. Kassem represented him at Guantanamo. Now Kassem sits in the mayor's inner circle — and this week, Mamdani not only plans to stand at Ground Zero for the commemoration but he also wanted his Al-Qaeda sympathizing Chief Counsel to have a commemorative piece.

Real nice.

Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor of New York on September 11, 2001, wasn't subtle about what he thinks of the arrangement. "Having lost friends there and being very close to many of the families, it offends me that he's coming," Giuliani told Newsmax. "The reality is this ceremony is for the families and for America to remember historically."

Mamdani attempted to downplay the incident, "I'm proud to be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country." He added that he wants the week to focus "on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of Sept. 11 and a focus also on the first responders who gave everything they could to this city."

When pressed further, Mamdani offered five words: "I don't have much more to add."

Notice what's absent from every one of those statements. Not a single word about the attackers. Not a syllable naming the ideology that drove 19 men to murder 2,977 people. The mayor of New York City — the city that lost more than any other that morning — managed to talk about September 11 without once naming the enemy. "Horrific act of terror" is doing a lot of load-bearing work in that sentence, and it buckles under inspection.

Giuliani's objection isn't complicated. The ceremony exists for the families who buried firefighters and office workers and flight attendants. It exists for the first responders who are still dying from what they inhaled in the pile. It does not exist so that a mayor can rehabilitate his image while his top legal adviser's résumé includes "defended Al-Qaeda at Gitmo."

Some will argue that defense attorneys serve a constitutional function. They do. Nobody disputes that Kassem had every legal right to take al-Darbi's case. But having the legal right to do something and being the right person to stand next to the mayor at Ground Zero on September 11 are two entirely different questions. The Constitution guarantees counsel. It does not guarantee a ceremonial pen and a seat of power in the city the attackers tried to destroy.

Twenty-five years is long enough for the towers to become history for an entire generation that never saw them. It is long enough for a new mayor to treat the anniversary as a branding opportunity. It is apparently not long enough for New York to expect its leaders to say the word "Islamist" out loud.

When Giuliani says the ceremony is for the families, he means it isn't a stage. Mamdani seems to disagree — and his Chief Counsel's client list tells you everything about whose comfort level matters most at City Hall.

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