The Alleged Wit and Wisdom of Dan Halloran

"Money is what greases the wheels — good, bad or indifferent."

These words, allegedly spoken by City Councilman Dan Halloran, should be a credo for almost every man or woman in New York City politics, if he is to be believed.

They may or may not be true of Queens politics in particular — though Halloran will be the man with the dubious distinction of having spoken them while being recorded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

During his tenure on the New York City Council, Halloran has earned a reputation as a mouth that roars. He has been, above all, someone who speaks bluntly.

In the criminal complaint released Tuesday morning, in which Halloran is alleged to have helped organize a scheme to rig the 2013 mayoral election, that penchant seems just as prominent behind closed doors. Or in hotel bars. Or fancy restaurants.

During the course of a federal sting that ended Tuesday morning with six arrests, Halloran met multiple times with a cooperating witness and an FBI agent posing as a wealthy realtor looking to buy influence.

Each of these meetings ended with Halloran allegedly accepting a bribe — anywhere from $500 to $15,000 — and every meeting was filled with Halloran’s trademark wry wit.

In September 2012, while Halloran was still running for Congress in Queens, he met with the undercover agent and the cooperating witness at a Manhattan restaurant.

Halloran allegedly agreed to use some of his own member item funds for pet projects in exchange for cash, chalking it up to New York politics.

“That's politics, that's politics, it's all about how much. Not about whether or will, it's about how much, and that's our politicians in New York,” Halloran said, according to the complaint. “They're all like that, all like that. And they get like that because of the drive that the money does for everything else. You can't do anything without the fucking money."

At the end of the meeting, Halloran allegedly received $7,500 in cash, just before saying what will likely be immortal words in Queens political history. Good. Bad. Indifferent. Whatever. 

The incident was just the first of more than half a dozen meetings that allegedly took place between Halloran, the witness and the undercover agent between September and February. Each time, Halloran allegedly accepted cash or — in one instance — an illicit congressional campaign donation.

During a meeting over drinks at a Manhattan hotel, Halloran, the witness and the agent discussed distributing more than $20,000 in council discretionary funding illegally. Halloran, according to the complaint, said it would be child’s play.

“Absolutely, that's easy, that's not even an issue, not even an issue,” he allegedly said. “In fact, I might even be able to get you more."

All of this was happening — and being recorded by the FBI — while Halloran accused his opponent in a congressional campaign, Grace Meng, of using shady campaign bundlers possibly connected to her father, who was arrested for trying to extort money from a business associate.

Halloran laid out for the witness and the undercover agent the exact step-by-step process of filing for discretionary funding through the council — and even said he would call in favors from other council members to increase the sum. It had to be done properly, Halloran allegedly said, “so that there's no questions, it raises no flags, and everybody's got it the way it's gotta be. You do it the right way, not a problem, then you will definitely have my, my member item."

The three then toasted their future success.

The quid pro quo that eventually unfolded as a result of these half dozen meetings was a no-show job consulting with a Queens senior center and $80,000 worth of council funds, according to the criminal complaint.

For U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who will be prosecuting the upcoming case in Manhattan federal court, this corruption bust seems to be just the latest in a long, unsettling string.

You can almost hear him sighing in his public statement Tuesday.

"Many may rightly resign themselves to the sad truth that perhaps the most powerful special interest in politics is self-interest," Bharara said. 

Now, Smith and Halloran, along with four others, could be following in the footsteps of Queens officials like Shirley Huntley, Tony Seminerio, Jimmy Meng and Alan Hevesi.

If you ask Halloran though, that's just politics.