Report to the Commissioner

George Soros pays a visit to the commissioner of the NYPD, as Len Levitt of the Huffington Post notes in a surprisingly tough article, given the Website it appears on:

No wonder Police Commissioner Ray Kelly refuses to release his public schedule. He might have to answer questions about why wealthy and powerful people are meeting with him.

Just last week, for example, one of the world’s richest men had a secret confab with Kelly at One Police Plaza: George Soros.

Escorted by a retired NYPD cop, driving a wine-colored Mercedes, the left-leaning billionaire was whisked in and out police headquarters with no one being the wiser.

A Soros official confirmed to NYPD Confidential that this meeting took place. Typically, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne did not respond to an email asking about it.

Soros appeared at Police Plaza amid news reports in rightwing media that his Open Society Institute, which promotes democratic governance, human rights and social reform, has been funding the Occupy Wall Street movement — something Soros’ spokesman has denied.

Perhaps Soros felt he had to personally assure Kelly that he’s not the money-man behind the protestors, who have been bedeviling the police department and Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg for the past month.

Levitt goes on to note:

“There is no good reason for Commissioner Kelly to withhold this information from the public,” said the Civil Liberties Union Director Donna Lieberman. “If it’s safe for the leader of the country to disclose his schedule, then it’s safe for the NYPD commissioner to do the same.”

But not all New Yorkers agree. An opposing view came from Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at NYU.

“The police commissioner of New York City occupies a special, appointed position,” Moss told the New York Times. “He’s our secretary of defense, head of the CIA and I would say, chief architect rolled into one.”

Moss added that Kelly deserves “broad latitude” on disclosure in the post-terrorist era, and compared him to the Fox T.V. crime-fighter who breaks laws in the name of national security. “He’s as close as we come to Jack Bauer,” Moss said of Kelly.

I didn’t know Jack Bauer’s methods had such approval at NYU.