New York City’s top watchdog agency has hired a team of lawyers to investigate exactly what city officials knew about health hazards from toxic dust created by the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

In a notice issued on Friday, the Department of Investigation said it selected a firm to “ascertain the knowledge possessed by mayoral administrations on environmental toxins produced by the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.”

The investigation is mandated by a City Council resolution passed in July 2025. The department’s plan to hire the outside counsel to help with the probe comes just over a week after Mayor Zohran Mamdani released some 170,000 documents related to the air quality around Ground Zero following the attacks that revealed officials had early concerns over asbestos — and legal liability — even as government leaders publicly told New Yorkers the air was safe to breathe.

The investigation department is finalizing a two-year, $3.8 million contract to the law firm Epstein Becker and Green PC to help with what the notice described as a “time-sensitive” probe. The law firm did not respond to a request for comment.

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