John Liu was never suited for public office. But last week, his continued service as city comptroller became wholly untenable.
He needs to resign. Immediately.
That sad fact became indisputable following the arrest of a top Liu fund-raiser on conspiracy and wire-fraud charges.
Truth is, Liu’s unfitness for high office was obvious from early on.
His first two years as comptroller revealed Liu to be an unhinged egoist — and an unambiguous puppet of labor, serving his union benefactors at taxpayers’ expense and subverting his role as chief financial officer in the process.
The feds have now deepened their 2-year-old investigation of his crooked campaign books. But whatever they find, Liu would do the city — and himself — a great favor in stepping down. Here’s why:
Illegal Donations: This summer, Liu trumpeted the $1.5 million in small sums he received for his then-all-but-announced run for mayor in 2013.
But the feds are exhuming a scheme in which networks of phantom “straw donors” appear to have illegally “washed” campaign cash from big contributors. Each such donation could earn Liu up to $1,050 in public “matching funds” — constituting a direct theft from the public purse.
Indeed, such shenanigans by Liu & Co. seem apparent: On June 8, Liu reaped thousands of dollars in donations — including 17 suspicious gifts from apparent straw donors working at a Queens plumbing business.
The feds are also eyeing possible illegal foreign donations in 2009, when he took $1.35 million in public funds.
A Bizarre Character: While running for comptroller, Liu claimed he “had to work in a sweatshop to make ends meet” as a 7-year-old — a lie his own parents exposed.
Once elected, he demanded that his staff rise when he entered the room and address him as “Mr. Comptroller.”
His egotism undid him when he tried to strong-arm The New York Times by refusing to divulge his donation numbers unless the paper “focused heavily on him.”
Comrades: Liu’s good buddy (and policy director) John Choe was an anti-American loon and unabashed booster of North Korea’s murderous Stalinist regime.
Choe, who honeymooned in Pyongyang, was fired after The Post reported allegations that he also runs a pro-communist front group controlled by Pyongyang.
Reform-Killer: One of Liu’s chief roles is as a trustee of the city’s pension funds. But — to please the municipal unions — he subverted his duty to taxpayers, hiding the effects of skyrocketing pension costs.
Liu filed two reports arguing against public-pension reform, even though the pension burden on city taxpayers has exploded to $8.5 billion a year, up from just $1.1 billion a decade ago.
Conflicts of Interest: In June, Liu announced a purely discretionary audit of Central Park’s Boathouse restaurant — just after attending a rally where he smeared the Boathouse’s owner for attacking the “dignity” of its employees.
The point, frankly, was to pressure the heretofore non-unionized restaurant to accept a union, which it then did.
Contract Abuse: Liu blocked a $150 million police pension-fund investment contract from the Blackstone Group after an executive there criticized unions in public, as The Post reported.
His real goal was to kill debate about pension costs — and control what private citizens can say in public.
He also steered two no-bid contracts for $144,000 to pro-labor groups.
Sins of Wages: A Manhattan judge had to order a recalculation of the “absurd” pay scale that Liu — using his authority to set “prevailing-wage rates” — created for movers hired by the city.
Liu’s hanky-panky would have doubled the city’s costs — inflating rates to 80 percent above actual marketplace wages.
Transparency: Liu rammed through a rule change to hide the names of tens of thousands of city pensioners from public scrutiny and block access for watchdogs.
That little doozy ended a decades-long custom of city sunlight, infuriating good-government groups.
Now, this page has been sounding the alarms from the very first. As we wrote the week before his 2009 election: “Heaven help New York” if John Liu wins.
Alas, he won. The city lost.
Now, evidence of criminal manipulations is growing.
His mayoral aspirations are surely over.
But so, too, should be his days watching New York’s $65 billion budget and $100 billion pension funds.
As one wag noted, “The person who’s supposed to protect the city from fraud can’t be under investigation for fraud.”
And yet, he seems not to get it.
“I want to run for the highest office in New York,” he said defiantly last week.
It’s pure delusion.
John Liu needs to pack it in. Now.
And never unpack.