The gold seized by the FBI actually belong to the powerful New Jersey Democrat’s second wife, Nadine, and he had no idea she had any gold other than her family’s gold, Menendez’s lawyer Avi Weitzman told jurors in Manhattan Federal Court.

And the cash, found stashed throughout the house, was money Menendez withdrew bit by bit over three decades, keeping it in the house because of generational trauma, Weitzman said. His parents were Cuban refugees who lost everything but the cash they hid in a grandfather clock, so he knew the value of keeping money in the house, the lawyer said.

“Of course there’s an elephant in the room, a green and gold elephant,” Weitzman said. “There are innocent explanations for the gold and the cash.”

Menendez, 70, who’s served as a U.S. senator since 2006, is accused of accepting bribes from N.J. businessmen Wael Hana, Fred Daibes and Jose Uribe in exchange for using his influence as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to benefit Egypt and Qatar, and to interfere with criminal investigations in New Jersey.

Hana and Daibes are also standing trial, while Uribe has turned government cooperator. Menendez’s wife, Nadine, faces a separate trial in July.

In an opening argument that stretched over an hour, Weitzman used a flashy slide presentation that riffed off the popular “Where’s Waldo” children’s books, with an image titled “Where’s Bob?” to suggest that he had no involvement with any financial dealings between his wife and businessmen like Daibes.

He started dating his wife in 2018 and moved into her New Jersey home in 2020, the year they were married.

“Nadine had financial concerns that she kept from Bob. She was often supported by others,” Weitzman said. “But she kept Bob sidelined from those conversations. And you’ll see that in black and white.”

“Where’s Bob? I’ll tell you where, he was doing his job, in the nation’s capital.”

Weitzman said that the gold bars found by the feds, which prosecutors say came from Daibes, were actually found in his wife’s locked closet, and Menendez didn’t know what she had in there.

“He knew that she had family gold,” Weitzman said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz argued that the gold and cash were the price of Menendez selling out his country, as was a new Mercedes-Benz convertible for Nadine that Uribe paid for.

“He was powerful. He was also corrupt. For years, Robert Menendez betrayed the people he was supposed to serve by taking bribes,” she said. “This was not politics as usual. This was politics for profit … Robert Menendez was a United States senator on the take.”

Menendez, who was previously charged with corruption in a separate case that ended in a mistrial, was running a multi-pronged bribery scheme with his wife as a go-between, Pomerantz said.

The prosecutor described Hana as a failed businessman with connections to the Egyptian government. Hana, she said, bribed Menendez to leak nonpublic information about the U.S. embassy to Egyptian officials, to secretly ghost write a letter meant to respond to other senators’ concerns about human rights abuses, and to help approve the sale of almost $100 million of tank ammunition to Egypt.

Hana got a benefit of his own — a monopoly on the export of halal meat from the U.S. to Egypt, at the expense of other U.S. companies that used to do that business, the prosecutors said. And when a USDA official voiced concerns, Menendez tried to run interference and muscle that official into backing down, she said. The attempt didn’t shake the official’s attempts, but Egypt still gave Hana the monopoly, she said.

Menendez also tried to pressure the N.J. attorney general and the state’s U.S. attorney into dropping criminal cases against pals of Uribe and Daibes, the prosecutor said.

Menendez’s defense lawyer said all of his actions were just part of the normal duties of being a senator — taking interest in international matters and issues that impact his constituents. The senator had no power over the criminal cases, Weitzman said, and he was just asking about allegations that Latino businessmen were being targeted for selective prosecution.

“That’s not illegal. You may not like it. But it’s not illegal,” he said. “Listening to a friend is not a crime.”

The trial continues tomorrow with opening arguments from Hana and Daibes’ lawyers

Bowman (D-Westchester, Bronx) accused the United Democracy Project, which is tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), of spending lavishly to unseat him and silence his harsh criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza.

“New Yorkers know that if George Latimer is willing to sell out to Donald Trump’s biggest donors, he will sell you out, too,” Bowman said.

Bowman is locked in what is thought to be a tight battle with Westchester County Executive Latimer in June 25’s 16th Congressional District Democratic primary. Latimer is trumpeting his strong support for Israel.

Bowman says the AIPAC-affiliated group is bankrolled by conservative megadonors who usually back pro-Trump Republicans.

“Voters — not GOP billionaires — should be the ones who decide Democratic primaries,” said Jasmine Gripper of the Working Families Party, which is backing Bowman.

“Now he’s complaining … it’s not fair,” said a spokesman for Latimer’s campaign. “He needs to grow up.”

The two candidates traded barbs over Israel during their first debate Monday night.

Bowman accused Latimer of being “bought and paid for” by pro-Israel donors, while Latimer said the former Bronx middle school principal should focus more on legislating and less on grabbing media attention.

The 16th Congressional District covers most of the southern half of Westchester, including the majority minority cities of Mount Vernon, Yonkers and New Rochelle, along with some of the nation’s most affluent suburbs. It also includes slivers of the Bronx.

The district is strongly Democratic, and the winner of the primary will be an overwhelming favorite to win in November.

Political pundits say the pro-Israel group’s spending is likely just the start of a $10 million spending spree aimed at toppling Bowman, who is one of their top targets among the so-called squad of pro-Palestinian progressive lawmakers.

“It’s likely the tip of the iceberg,” said Jacob Rubashkin, an analyst with Inside Elections. “[AIPAC] thinks they can boost Latimer’s chances by spending a bunch of money.”

Although the AIPAC-affiliated group is funded by pro-Israel donors, its ads typically focus on other issues of more general interest to voters.

In the 16th Congressional District, Rubashkin predicted, the ads may echo Latimer’s attacks on Bowman for voting against President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure plan or emphasize an embarrassing episode in which Bowman pulled a fire alarm during a congressional vote.

The congressional ad wars are unfolding as Israel continues to be a key issue on Capitol Hill.

The Republican-led House of Representatives is pushing a measure that would pressure Biden to end a pause on delivering huge bombs to Israel that have been dropped on Palestinian civilian targets in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the White House announced a new $1 billion arms sale to the Jewish state, a move that Bowman called “disappointing.”

Bowman says the U.S. should be pushing much harder to get Israel to end the war in Gaza, negotiate an end to its 57-year occupation of Palestinian lands and establish an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

The mayor made the remark during a Tuesday press conference while talking about wanting to address the city’s shortage of lifeguards.

He said hiring migrants for lifeguard posts would make sense since they “are excellent swimmers” before lamenting that the “only obstacle is that we won’t give them the right to work.”

Matamoros, Mexico

Some immigration advocates blasted Adams’ comment as distasteful, given that many newly arrived migrants crossed the treacherous Rio Grande on the Mexican border to make it into the U.S.

But the mayor said Wednesday afternoon that wasn’t at all what he was getting at.

“I go to the [migrant shelters], and I’m blown away by how many of the West Africans — swimmers, how many of the South Americans — swimmers. I say, ‘How many of you guys know how to swim?’ Hands go up,” he told reporters at City Hall after an unrelated press conference.

“So we have these capable people who know how to swim from West Africa, from Ecuador, from South, Central America, from Mexico, and we have a shortage of lifeguards, so if we start planning out now, we can be prepared.”

Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, didn’t buy the mayor’s explanation and said he should apologize for his “out of line” remark.

“His comments on asylum seekers being ‘excellent swimmers’ implies that because some immigrants had to swim or wade across water on their dangerous journeys to seek safety in the United States, that they would make good lifeguards,” Awawdeh said.

“This comment is racist, and the mayor should not be making light of the perilous and often life-threatening journeys people are forced to make to escape violence and persecution. It’s demeaning and dehumanizing.”

Staff shortages in the city’s lifeguard ranks started hampering the city during the COVID-19 pandemic, part of a pattern seen across the U.S.

Last summer, just about 750 lifeguards were staffing the city’s 14 miles of beaches and dozens of public pools. That’s far short of the 1,400-1,500 lifeguards that the Parks Department aims to hire ahead of every summer.

In defending his comments Wednesday, Adams noted that he has proposed hiring migrants to fill the city’s shortages of nurses and food service workers, too.

“Now why people want to just hang on to the swimming … I’ve been saying this over and over again: Let people work,” he said.

migrants

The letter, signed by 17 Council members and 14 mostly Muslim community groups, took particular issue with claims from the mayor and his press office that Naveed was axed last month because he didn’t put “bringing hate crimes down first.”

“To suggest that he prioritized himself over the city’s mission of combating hate crimes against all New Yorkers is not only unfounded, but deeply offensive to those who have worked closely with him, and who he has helped over the years,” read the letter, a copy of which was exclusively obtained by the Daily News.

“Questioning his integrity and character is not just disheartening; it is an affront to everything we stand for as a city.”

Asked for a response to the letter Wednesday, Adams’ office referred to comments the mayor made about Naveed last month.

In those remarks, the mayor dismissed that Naveed was canned due to his Muslim faith. Instead, he suggested Naveed didn’t “live up” to the job, given that there has been a recent spike in hate crimes in the city.

The Hamas Oct. 7 terror attack in Israel and the war in Gaza that followed have sparked protests and anger across New York.

As of April 14, there had been 96 reported anti-Semitic hate crimes this year, a 45% increase compared with the same time frame in 2023, and nine reported Islamophobic hate crimes, compared with just one in the same span in 2023, NYPD data show.

In responding to Naveed’s discrimination accusation, Adams also noted he has other Muslim employees in his administration.

The signatories on Wednesday’s missive include Brooklyn Councilwoman Shahana Hanif and Manhattan Councilman Yusef Salaam, the chamber’s only two Muslim members.

Among the community groups that signed on to the letter is Majlis Ash-Shura, an umbrella organization representing more than 90 local mosques.

That group has a history of supporting Adams that includes inviting him to deliver remarks at its 30th anniversary gala in 2019, when he was Brooklyn borough president. But the group has recently been critical of politicians who aren’t calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war; Adams is among those who haven’t. More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza as part of the military campaign Israel launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack.

Assignment- CLOSE RIKERS

Wednesday’s letter echoed some of Majlis Ash-Shura’s concerns over the tumult in the Middle East, charging there has recently been “a change” in the Adams administration’s “approach with vulnerable communities, raising concerns about fair representation for all New Yorkers.”

Hanif, a frequent Adams critic who is co-chairwoman of the Council’s Progressive Caucus, said in an interview that part of the letter is about what she sees as a disregard for Palestinians and Muslims amid the devastation in Gaza.

“Since Oct. 7, the Adams administration has consistently dismissed discrimination against Muslims and Palestinians,” she said.

Naveed declined to comment on the letter to the mayor.

As first reported by The News, Naveed was booted on April 16 from his job as executive director of the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes. He told The News he wasn’t given a reason for his firing, but that he believes it was the result of his Muslim faith. He also said he has hired an attorney and that he’s in the process of filing a legal claim alleging he was the victim of discrimination.

It’s unclear who’ll replace Naveed, and his former office now has only one staffer.

The letter from the Council members and the community groups argued it’s preposterous for Adams to point blame at Naveed for a hate crime uptick, since his administration has cut funding and staff for the Hate Crimes Prevention Office. The letter also contended City Hall’s treatment of Naveed sets a troubling precedent.

“Despite the presence of a few Muslim members within this administration, using their mere existence as grounds to dismiss legitimate claims of discrimination is unacceptable,” it said. “Publicly singling out an individual like Mr. Naveed and attributing circumstances solely to unsubstantiated performance issues, while disregarding such discrimination claims, sends a chilling message to others and creates a barrier that discourages reporting workplace harassment, hate crimes, discrimination, bullying and bias incidents without fear of retaliation.”

“I’ll be there,” Trump told Fox News. “Look forward to being in beautiful Atlanta.”

Both candidates also accepted invitations for a second debate hosted by ABC News on Sept. 10.

The two rivals quickly agreed to debate after a feisty Biden issued a challenge to square off against Trump next month in an early morning video posted on social media.

“[Trump’s] acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice,” Biden said.

The president even included a dig at Trump over his ongoing Manhattan criminal trial, which is dark on Wednesdays.

“Let’s pick a date,” Biden said. “I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.”

Trump, who has said he is also eager to debate, wasted no time responding to his rival’s challenge.

“I am ready and willing to debate [Biden],” he wrote on his Truth Social site. “Let’s get ready to rumble.”

It remains to be seen if the two campaigns can reach a final agreement on formats, although there seemed to be no major immediate disputes.

Biden’s campaign wants the debates to be held with a moderator in a television studio, without a live crowd and with the microphones only turned on for the candidate who is speaking. That tweak is designed to prevent a repeat of the chaotic 2020 debates when Trump repeatedly interrupted Biden.

Trump initially countered by calling for them to be held in a “very large” venue, citing “excitement purposes.” His campaign also called for a total of four debates, including additional faceoffs in July and August.

But Trump’s campaign accepted the offer from CNN for a debate to be held in the network’s Atlanta studio without a live audience.

Neither candidate mentioned the possibility of independent candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. being included.

“They are trying to exclude me from the debate because they are afraid I would win,” Kennedy said in a statement.

The campaigns have apparently both decided not to work with the Commission on Presidential Debates, the bipartisan group that has organized debates for the past several elections.

Neither Biden nor Trump even mentioned the commission, which had planned a slate of three presidential debates starting in mid-September in San Marcos, Texas. The group also planned one vice presidential debate.

Presidential debates have never been held before Labor Day, the traditional start of the fall campaign season, much less prior to the two parties’ summer conventions.

The Republican National Convention is set for mid-July in Milwaukee while Democrats will gather in August in Chicago.

The earlier debates would reflect the major changes to how and when Americans vote for president. Tens of millions of people are expected to cast ballots before Election Day on Nov. 5, either by mail or early in-person voting, with some states sending ballots to voters in early September.

Manhattan Federal Court Judge Sidney Stein spent part of Tuesday afternoon hearing from dozens of jurors who said they had family members and friends in law enforcement jobs. Most, but not all, said they could still be impartial in the case.

The 70-year-old Democrat is accused of conspiring to act as a foreign agent for Egypt as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and of abusing his position to advance Qatari interests in exchange for gold bullion bars, flashy watches and Formula 1 tickets. He denies the charges.

“We’re getting closer every time you see me,” Stein said Tuesday. He told the attorneys that he expects the jury to be selected by mid-morning Wednesday, with opening arguments later in the day.

The trial is expected to last six or seven weeks.

N.J. businessmen Wael Hana and Fred Danies will stand trial alongside the veteran politician, while Menendez’s wife, Nadine, will face a separate trial in July.

Stein spent Monday and Tuesday winnowing down a pool of 150 prospective jurors, dismissing more than 70 of them. Many had a variety of personal obligations or medical concerns that would have prevented them from serving.

One said he suffered from an extreme fear of heights that would make him uncomfortable in the 23rd-floor courtroom.

More than 30 of the remaining jurors were questioned Tuesday on their jobs and occupational backgrounds, how they get their news and what they do in their spare time.

The majority of those questioned have a college education or better. One potential juror, a lawyer with a large bank, offered a surprising detail — he donated money to Menendez and several other campaigns through a political action committee. He said he could still be impartial.

Stein on Tuesday afternoon went though a list of several hundred names of people who might either be witnesses or otherwise mentioned in testimony — including David Axelrod, the chief strategist for former President Barack Obama, and several U.S. senators including Marsha Blackburn, Cory Booker, Christopher Coons, Lindsey Graham, Tim Kaine, Chris Murphy and Krysten Sinema.

“So I was sitting with President Trump and he asked me if I was OK. He asked me if I needed money,” Cohen recalled.

“He said, um, ‘Alright. Just make sure you deal with Allen’” — the Trump family’s longtime financial sentry, Allen Weisselberg, currently serving a second stint on Rikers for a perjury conviction — Cohen added.

During his second day on the witness stand, he told the Manhattan Supreme Court jury that the meeting happened on Feb. 8, 2017, not long after Trump took up residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Trump’s then-lawyer was still waiting to be paid back for silencing Daniels about claims of an extramarital tryst with Trump 11 days out from the election. Establishing Trump’s knowledge of the hush money reimbursement is crucial for prosecutors to prove their case.

“Did he say anything about anything that would be forthcoming?” prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked.

“Yes,” Cohen replied. “It would be a check for January and February.”

During over five hours in the witness box on Monday, Trump’s loyal lawyer-turned-chief antagonist said his boss played a direct role in the effort to silence Daniels, former Playboy model Karen McDougal and a Trump Tower doorman about a series of sex scandals, the latter two of whom were paid off by former tabloid publisher David Pecker. Trump has pleaded not guilty and strongly denies the affairs.

Trump’s chief financial officer said he’d be reimbursed for handling the hush-money deal in installments purporting to cover a retainer fee as the president’s personal attorney, Cohen said. He testified Monday and Tuesday that the role was mostly meaningless and that he felt abandoned once Trump left Fifth Ave. for the White House.

“[Trump] approved it. And he also said, ‘This is going to be one heck of a ride in D.C.,’” Cohen said Monday.

Cohen, who went to federal prison for the payoff after pleading guilty to violating campaign finance laws and other crimes in 2018, wanted the remittance in one lump sum, but “Mr. Trump allegedly said, ‘No, it’s better, it’s better to do it over the 12 months.’”

Trump, 77, is accused of repeatedly falsifying New York business records throughout 2017 to disguise the reimbursement to Cohen — classifying it as payment for legal fees — to disguise an underlying scheme to hide damaging information from the voting public.

On Tuesday morning, Hoffinger pulled up each of Cohen’s 11 invoices to display to the court and asked him if they were false or accounted for actual “services rendered.”

“No ma’am,” Cohen answered. “They were for reimbursement.”

Asked how many hours of work he put in throughout 2017 while being compensated monthly in the tens of thousands, Cohen said, “Less than 10.”

Among the evidence the jury will have before them when they begin to deliberate is a bank statement reflecting Cohen’s payoff to Daniels — wired to her attorney, Keith Davidson, through a shell company hastily set up by Cohen in the waning days of the 2016 race. They will also have the invoices and the 11 checks Cohen received bearing Trump’s renowned spiky signature written with a Sharpie.

Last week, Weisselberg’s longtime deputy, ex-Trump Org controller Jeff McConney, identified handwritten notes on the Davidson statement as the penmanship of his former boss. The CFO calculated that Cohen was owed $420,000 — $130,000 for the payment to Daniels and an additional $50,000 Cohen paid a tech company for Trump-related work, then multiplied by two to account for taxes plus a $60,000 bonus.

Cohen revealed Monday that notes on the statement documenting the $50,000 expense were his own.

The jury on Tuesday heard how Cohen and Trump’s feud came to pass following Cohen’s 2018 guilty plea, with the former fixer saying he last spoke with his longtime boss sitting feet away at the defense table after his office and hotel room were raided by the feds, which Cohen called the “worst day of my life.”

“He said to me, ‘Don’t worry, I’m the president of the United States, there’s nothing here — everything’s going to be OK. Stay tough. You’re going to be OK,’” Cohen recalled, adding that others told him he was “loved” by Trump.

In the immediate aftermath, Cohen — who has since sought to rebrand himself as a liberal resistance hero — said he felt “reassured, because I had the president of the United States protecting me.”

Trump’s eyes were closed for long periods of Tuesday’s testimony, leaving spectators wondering if he was dozing off, and he and Cohen barely looked in each other’s direction.

Trump’s court appearances have drawn high-profile supporters, including former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Eric Trump, and his wife, Lara, on Tuesday. House Speaker Mike Johnson lamented the trial outside the lower Manhattan courthouse without stepping foot inside the courtroom.

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, Florida Republicans Byron Donalds and Cory Mills, and Fox News host Laura Ingraham were also among those who came to the courthouse. Ingraham received a talking-to from a court officer for taking out her phone.

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche came bucking out of the gate on cross-examination later Tuesday, almost instantly earning a sustained objection when he asked Cohen if he’d recently referred to him on TikTok as “a crying little s–t.”

“Sounds like something I would say,” Cohen replied.

Blanche also asked Cohen about schoolyard taunts he’d made in public about Trump, ranging from “dictator douchebag” and “boorish cartoon misogynist” to “Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain.” Cohen didn’t deny any of them.

Blanche attacked his credibility from all sides by portraying him as driven by hatred and financial greed. He highlighted Cohen’s countless public statements calling for Trump to be imprisoned, his propensity to wax lyrical on the phone with reporters, and the motivations behind his extensive cooperation in prosecutors’ Trump probe leading to the case on trial.

Cohen, known for having a notoriously short fuse, has yet to lose his cool on the stand and gave mild, one-word replies to the grilling.

The defense has claimed that Cohen’s payment to Daniels was an example of him going rogue and showed an unhealthy obsession with his boss. Cohen on Tuesday rejected that framing.

Asked about past praise Cohen gave of Trump — calling him “a good man” in 2015 and saying that he “cares deeply about this country” and “he’s a man who tells it straight” — Cohen said he believed his remarks at the time.

“At that time, I was knee-deep into the cult of Donald Trump,” he explained.

It emerged in court Tuesday that Cohen was the prosecution’s last scheduled witness. Trump’s lawyers said they had yet to decide whether their client, the presumptive GOP nominee in this year’s presidential election, would take the stand.

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The first batch of closures marks a drop in the bucket as there are believed to be some 3,000 illegal pot shops operating in the Big Apple, most of which cropped up in the wake of the state legalizing marijuana in 2021 without immediately rolling out a comprehensive legal market.

In a press briefing at City Hall on Tuesday morning, Mayor Adams acknowledged there’s a lot more work to do.

“They are just getting started,” he said of the Operation Padlock strike force, which is being led by the city Sheriff’s Office.

The operation was launched in response to Gov. Hochul and Albany lawmakers granting the city expanded enforcement powers last month that allows it to close down illegal weed shops without first securing approval from the state.

Before the state gave the city the beefed up authority, Adams promised repeatedly that he would shut down every unlicensed weed shop in the city “within 30 days” of being awarded the expanded enforcement powers. But on April 30, shortly after the state finally gave him those powers, Adams tempered expectations, saying he’d instead make “a substantial dent” in reducing the number of illicit shops within 30 days.

The locations of the 75 newly-shuttered shops weren’t immediately known. An Adams spokeswoman declined to immediately identify them.

The spokeswoman also would not give a specific number of shops that Operation Padlock aims to shut down each week, but said the strike force will have 15 teams deployed across the city doing closure operations each day.

Going forward, enforcement teams will “proactively monitor” establishments that have been shuttered to make sure they stay closed, the spokeswoman added.

The 75 fresh padlock cases resulted in nearly $6 million in penalties being issued against the operators of the shops in question, according to Adams’ office. It’s unclear how many of those penalties have so far been collected.

A cannabis enforcement-related issue that has lately caught the attention of lawmakers is court processing.

Under the expanded enforcement authorities, the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, known as OATH, must adjudicate any weed shop padlock case within five days.

OATH is already scrambling to address growing case backlogs that have resulted in the average adjudication time for summonses being 12 days in the current fiscal year, according to data contained in the latest Preliminary Mayor’s Management Report.

Manhattan Councilwoman Gale Brewer, a Democrat who chairs the Council’s Oversight and Investigations Committee, sent a letter to OATH Commissioner Asim Rehman last week raising concern about how the agency will be able to comply with the five-day timeline, given existing backlogs.

In a Tuesday response letter obtained by the Daily News, Rehman wrote that OATH is “actively working to hire additional staff” in order to quickly adjudicate the expected influx of new weed shop padlock cases.

OATH spokeswoman Marisa Senigo said the agency is, among other positions, looking to hire new judicial hearing officers, attorneys and support staff. She did not provide a specific number of new hires that the agency is looking to make.

According to four sources with direct knowledge of the matter, the speaker broached the proposal during a conference meeting Monday with fellow Democratic members.

All city agency commissioner posts are being considered as part of the proposal to expand the Council’s so-called “advice-and-consent” powers, said one of the sources. However, the source cautioned it’s not likely that the Council will seek approval powers for all posts.

A spokesman for the speaker’s office did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday.

The agencies currently under consideration to be included in the advice-and-consent process are the Buildings Department, the Office of Emergency Management, the Administration of Children’s Services, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services and the Department of Youth and Community Development, two sources briefed on the matter told The News.

Two of the sources familiar with the speaker’s proposal noted that it did not seem like there’s interest from the Council at this point for requiring advice-and-consent on any of the uniformed commissioner positions.

The behind-the-scenes moves come as Mayor Adams is pushing for the Council to approve controversial lawyer Randy Mastro as a replacement for current Corporation Counsel Sylvia Hinds-Radix. As The News reported Monday, Mastro, who served as a deputy mayor in the Giuliani administration, has started talking to Council members about taking on the corp counsel role, even though he’s running into serious pushback.

The corporation counsel, who leads the Law Department and represents the mayor and other city employees in various legal matters, is currently one of the only top city government positions that require Council approval before a hire can be made by the mayor.

Other posts that currently require advise-and-consent approval from the Council include the Department of Investigation commissioner, some city Planning commissioners and the Taxi & Limousine Commission chief.

The corporation counsel post did not require Council consent until 2019, when city residents adopted a City Charter amendment via referendum that made the job fall within the chamber’s advice-and-consent purview.

The pathway to the latest proposed expansion of the Council’s advice-and-consent powers isn’t entirely clear.

According to one Council source, such an expansion would require a ballot referendum on top of any bill being passed. But another source claimed it could be accomplished simply through adopting a bill.

The conference meeting Monday was a “preliminary conversation about adding more categories” to the advice-and-consent process via legislation, according to another Council source.

The source noted that if such a bill passes, a City Charter amendment — which can only be done by a ballot referendum — would likely need to be enacted for the new categories to become legally binding.

Louis Cholden Brown, an attorney who served as former Council Speaker Corey Johnson’s top lawyer, agreed that a referendum is likely necessary — and said the Council would need to act quickly if it hopes to expand advice-and-consent this year.

“A referendum is absolutely necessary. The Council would need to pass by end of June to qualify for ballot this year,” Cholden Brown wrote on X of the new bill being considered.

But the mayor would not elaborate on what influenced his decision to let Greco, whose homes were raided by the FBI earlier this year, come back, only saying that employment matters such as hers are handled on “a case by case basis.”

“The final decision is up to me, and that’s the final decision we made,” he told reporters at City Hall.

Greco, who serves as Adams’ Asian community liaison and has been a prolific fundraisers for his various political campaigns over the years, came back to work in early May after going on paid sick leave in February in the wake of FBI agents raiding her two Pelham Bay homes.

The exact focus of the investigation that prompted the raids remains unclear, and Greco hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing.

The searches of her homes came on the same day the feds raided the New World Mall in Queens, where Greco helped host multiple fundraisers for Adams’ 2021 campaign that generated tens of thousands of dollars in contributions, some of which have been identified by the news outlet The City as potentially illegal.

Also at the time of the raids, Greco was known to be facing scrutiny from the Department of Investigation over allegations that she misused municipal resources, including by having a subordinate help renovate her kitchen.

A separate federal investigation into allegations that the Turkish government funneled illegal foreign money into Adams’ 2021 campaign coffers prompted FBI agents to raid the home of another Adams aide, Rana Abbasova, last fall.

Abbasova was suspended from her job shortly after the raid, and she has not been allowed to return to work, according to sources familiar with the matter. Adams has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the probe.

Adams declined to explain at Tuesday’s news conference why Abbasova, unlike Greco, hasn’t been allowed to come back.

“I talked about it already, there’s no more I have to add to that,” he said.

In addition to being allowed to return to work, it was revealed last week that Greco has since last summer received a $96,267 raise.

Asked Tuesday what prompted the raises, Adams said Greco was among members of his administration who came onboard with salaries that “were not in parity” with their job descriptions.

“To their credit, they didn’t complain every day,” he said. “They continued to do the job.”