A prominent attorney who made a name taking cases in and around Big Apple politics is entering the already crowded field for mayor.
Jim Walden is billing himself as an apolitical candidate who wants to capture support from the right and left with hopes of mirroring the approach of former mayor Mike Bloomberg, he told The Post.
“I will be Bloomberg 2.0,” said the 58-year-old litigator. “I want to go beyond what he did and expand on what he did.”
“I think I will be regardless of who enters the race, I am literally the only candidate to run the government on Day One,” he asserted, touting a robust team working behind the scenes already advising him on policy.
But Walden enters the race with little name recognition and nowhere near the wealth of Bloomberg, setting up a tough path ahead for the political newcomer with six other known politicians already in the field.
The Brooklyn Heights resident, who hasn’t officially picked a political lane on whether he’ll vie for the Democratic or Republican nomination, will lend his campaign $500,000 to get off the ground after the presidential election.
If Mayor Eric Adams, who is fending off an indictment with at least one other potentially looming, were to be removed from office, the special election would be non-partisan.
Walden, who prosecuted mobsters in the Eastern District and later repped ex-governor Andrew Cuomo and former mayor Bill de Blasio, is already a key player in the mayor’s current myriad of federal probes.
One of his clients is former FDNY Chief Joseph Jardin, who accused the mayor and his team of ignoring fire safety standards at the Turkish Consulate and pressuring him to green-light the project, which is part of the allegations in the South District’s case against Adams.
Walden said he would take a leave from the boutique firm he founded, Walden, Macht & Haran.
While not naming the mayor, Walden said his campaign will run on an anti-corruption platform.
“I plan to have a very ambitious and visible strategy to eliminate the corruption,” he said, adding, “I’m doing this for the principal and not for self-aggrandizing.”
