Remembering Wayne Barrett, in his own words

Wayne Barrett, the New York investigative reporter who earned a national reputation for his hard-hitting coverage during several decades working at The Village Voice, died on Thursday at age 71. 

Barrett, who possessed a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of the state’s political players – and their transgressions – also penned uncompromising books about Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump; became a frequent commentator on television; and, after he was laid off by the Voice in 2010, contributed regularly to the Daily Beast and the Daily News.

In the last few years, he also wrote several investigative stories for City & State and was an occasional guest on video and podcast interviews. In honor of Barrett, we invite you to remember the legendary journalist through his own words.

On Andrew Cuomo: In the spring of 2014, City & State’s Gerson Borrero sat down with Barrett for a wide-ranging interview about Gov. Andrew Cuomo, including how he differs from his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo. “He has a tremendous mechanical mind, he can fix anything,” Barrett said of the younger Cuomo. “I have met a lot of politicians in my life. Politicians are a lot like me – they can't fix anything. Andrew can fix, and make anything work.” Watch the first part here. Watch the second part, which delves into the governor’s political calculations and their ramifications, here.

On Donald Trump: In an episode of the Slant podcast taped last spring, Barrett weighed in on the recent rise of Trump, the subject of his 1991 biography of the real estate developer, which has been reissued. “No one ever said the obvious, but the obvious is that this is a race button that Donald has pushed," Barrett said. "He thought he was gonna run in 2012 and what button did he push? The birther button. He's understood this for a long time. He thought he might run for mayor in '89, when he did the ads about the death penalty in the jogger case in Central Park. He's had one move to the basket, and it's race, and he understood that this was supposed to be a subliminal message. Not too subliminal, but a subliminal message of the Republican Party, the 'southern strategy' nationwide. But he's made it extremely explicit." Listen here.

On Bill de Blasio: In a second installment of the podcast taped last spring, Barrett weighed in on the relationship between Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. He called the governor’s alliance with Senate Republicans the “low point of his political career,” but added that de Blasio’s ties with real estate belie his good government reputation. Listen here.

On Sheldon Silver: In the wake of the scandal that brought down Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Barrett chronicled the Manhattan politician’s checkered past and questionable ties. “The sphinxlike former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who presented no defense at trial just as he answered no questions for decades, was convicted this week a few feet from where his public career started 45 years ago,” Barrett wrote. “He is now gone from our lives, his Assembly seat as vacant as his eyes, completing his shuffle from Manhattan State Supreme Court, where he began as a law secretary in 1971, to the federal courthouse on Foley Square, where 12 of his peers finally got a chance to judge seven of his felonies.”

A few weeks later, Barrett delved deeper into Silver’s ties to several key figures, some of them shadowy – including Daniel Chill, “an obscure embodiment of the permanent government, who was the mystery man at the heart of the criminal case against Silver" – and some well-known, such as then-Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, Silver’s “lifelong sidekick.”

Before Silver was convicted, Barrett had also unearthed dozens letters from notable figures requesting leniency for William Rapfogel, a Silver ally and head of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty who was convicted of embezzling $9 million from the organization. “They are a triumph of congeniality over conscience, with the call of the club taking precedence over the betrayal of the mission,” Barrett wrote. “The Jewish poor are invisible in this correspondence.”

On Dean Skelos: Never one to pick on one party or house at the expense of another, Barrett followed up his coverage of Silver by turning his attention to the Republican majority leader of the state Senate. Following up on a report that Dean Skelos was under investigation, Barrett tracked the lawmaker’s potential conflicts of interest while putting the spotlight on his son, Adam Skelos. Father and son were eventually convicted on corruption charges.

On Wayne Barrett: In a 2007 Q&A with City Hall, City & State’s predecessor publication, Barrett answers a number of questions about himself. Read it all here.