NEW YORK CITY (LifeSiteNews) – A New York City attorney who was fired after she challenged Mayor Eric Adams on his failure to lift toddler mask mandates issued a statement Thursday slamming the dismissal as an attack on her First Amendment right to free speech.
On Monday, Daniela Jampel was fired less than an hour after she grilled Adams at a press conference, telling him, “Ten days ago, you stood right here, and you said that the masks would come off April 4. That has not happened.” The mayor’s staff and the mayor appeared to think she was a reporter.
The mother of three said in a tweeted statement, “I am extremely confident that the decision to terminate my employment was a result of my constitutionally protected speech regarding my views on mask mandates. I am saddened that my career at Corporation Counsel came to such an unfortunate end because of my advocacy for children.”
Jampel invoked the First Amendment, declaring, “Regardless of an individual’s position on mask mandates, I believe that all Americans understand and appreciate the sacrosanct right of freedom of speech under the First Amendment and the ability to criticize the government without fear of retaliation.”
During the very same press conference in which Jampel confronted Adams on mask mandates for young children, Adams announced plans to recruit homosexual Floridians to move to the city in response to the Sunshine State’s new parental rights bill.
In a stroke of apparent irony, a slogan posted at the press conference, which Adams said will be displayed on billboards, reads, “Come to the city where you can say whatever you want,” in reference to the media’s reference to the law as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
In her statement, Jampel further denounced the mask mandates for children ages two to four as “cruel, unjust,” and “anti-science,” noting that “NYC is a national and international outlier in continuing to enforce this policy.”
The mayor said he backtracked on his promise to unmask two to four-year-olds because of an “uptick” in COVID cases.
Jampel clarified that she would not sue for the sake of her “family, friends, and colleagues,” who she said she did not want to put “through a protracted legal battle.”
The city said, however, that it had made the decision to oust Jampel prior to Monday.
“We hold all of our employees to the highest professional standards,” an unnamed spokesman told the New York Post. “In public statements, Ms. Jampel has made troubling claims about her work for the city Law Department. Based on those statements, the decision had been made to terminate her prior to today.”
“Today’s events, however, which include her decision to lie to City Hall staff and state she was a journalist at a press conference, demonstrate a disturbing lack of judgment and integrity,” the media rep said. “As of today, she is no longer an employee of the Law Department.”
According to the New York Post, Jampel had, up until now, spent 16 months “criticizing the city’s pandemic school closures and mask mandates” in her personal time. Most recently, in a since-deleted tweet, she hammered home her disdain for New York City.
“I am an attorney for the city. I have represented cops who lie in court, teachers who molest children, prison guards who beat inmates,” Jampel said Friday in her tweet, which was deleted sometime late Monday.
“It is a job I have done proudly. Until tonight. Fighting to keep masks on toddlers is shameful. I am ashamed of my office,’’ said Jampel.