Queens Democratic leaders are so worried that the ethical and criminal probes surrounding Rep. Gregory Meeks will bring him down, they held a secret meeting to pick his successor.
The clandestine cabal assembled last month at the Guy Brewer Democratic Club in Queens and included the borough’s Democratic boss, Rep. Joseph Crowley, according to two elected officials familiar with the gathering.
But the handpicked successor, state Sen. Malcolm Smith, seems a curious choice because he is under federal investigation himself.
“It would send a terrible signal to DC,” a source said of Smith’s coronation. “We would be the . . . joke of the country.”
Smith was at the meeting, along with City Council members Ruben Wills and Leroy Comrie, according to sources.
Meeks is up for re-election next year in a heavily minority and immigrant district that covers southeast Queens. If Meeks resigns or is expelled from Congress, the governor could call a special election to fill the seat or leave it vacant until the November 2012 elections.
A primary against Meeks is not being mulled because the embattled congressman’s premature exit is assumed, a source said.
“The problem with Greg is that he has done too wrong for too long,” said the source. “It’s just a question of which thing catches you first.”
Comrie was also tapped in the closed-door meeting to run for Smith’s Senate seat if Smith vacates it for Washington, said a source.
Both Comrie and Smith denied any knowledge of the meeting.
Meeks, 58, last month was named one of the most corrupt members of Congress by a Washington-based watchdog.
The House ethics committee is probing whether a $40,000 payment Meeks accepted from a Queens businessman in 2007 was a gift and not a loan, as the congressman maintains. The businessman, Edul Ahmad, was arrested in July on charges of operating a $50 million mortgage-fraud scheme.
“The jockeying for position began the day they indicted Ahmad,” said one of the elected officials. “Everyone assumes Ahmad is going to tell the feds what he knows about Greg.”
The US Attorney’s Office opened an investigation in 2010 into both Meeks and Smith after The Post reported they helped found a Queens charity that failed to document most of its spending.
Smith steered $56,000 in state member-item cash to the group, which also collected money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina but distributed almost none of it.
Smith, 55, was named majority leader after the Democrats took control of the Senate in 2008, becoming the first African-American to hold the post.
Comrie is a three-term city councilman.