Karen Bass can’t fireplace Casey Wasserman as the top of Los Angeles’ 2028 Olympic Video games, however she positive needs the soon-to-be former company boss out ASAP.
“My opinion is, is that he ought to step down,” LA Mayor Bass mentioned this Presidents’ Day on CNN. “That’s not the opinion of the board,” the reelection in search of incumbent added of the unanimous backing that Wasserman recieved from his handpicked LA Olympics board on February 11.
“The committee that’s concerned with the Olympics has the discretion, the board decided,” Mayor Bass mentioned Monday in an enormous break from her previously rather more circumspect statements about Wasserman as extra of his relationships with now useless pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his at the moment imprisoned chief procurer Ghislaine Maxwell got here to mild. “I believe that call was unlucky.”
“I don’t assist the choice. I do assume that we have to have a look at the management”
At that emergency LA28 board assembly final week and with ex-Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy seen as a possible substitute, essentially the most vocal advocate for protecting the more and more besieged Wasserman in his position was Jeffrey Katzenberg, sources near occasions mentioned on the time.
(l-R) Jeffrey Katzenberg & Casey Wasserman on April 19, 2025 in Los Angeles, CA . (Photograph: Getty)
The Katzenberg connection between Bass and the Eric Garcetti-appointed Wasserman has lengthy been seen as elementary to their relationship getting ready the town for the 2028 Summer season Video games. With an emphasis on options for LA’s homelessness blight, Katzenberg was a significant cheerleader and donor for the longtime Congresswoman onerous fought bid for LA’s high job in 2022.
Right this moment, the unpopular Mayor’s seemingly uncontested marketing campaign now has actual rivals. Add to that worries have been growing in influential circles over Wasserman’s judgement in not revealing his Epstein hyperlinks earlier
As is so typically mentioned political issues, it’s not the crime, however the cover-up. Which is why, clearly anticipating the query from CNN’s Dana Bash, Bass put the realpolitik of the destiny of Lew Wasserman’s grandson on the desk.
Wasserman, who promised associates late final yr that his already identified 2002 humanitarian journey with Epstein, Invoice Clinton, Maxwell and others was the complete extent of his affiliation with the 2008 convicted intercourse offender, has a “credibility drawback,” an insider says.
Bass’ remarks on cable TV additionally come as increasingly more LA politicians, together with one who needs Bass’ job, are calling for the LA28 Chair to resign. Time and time achieve, the decision is for Wasserman not be a “distraction” to theCity of Angels’ newest flip within the highlight in two years.
“My job as mayor of Los Angeles is to make it possible for our metropolis is totally ready to have the most effective Olympics that has ever occurred in Olympic historical past,” Bass informed CNN’s Dana Bash with some advantage and vice signaling to the board, the IOC and Wasserman buddy Donald Trump. “So my focus is somewhat totally different, however the conduct of Maxwell, what they had been concerned in is abhorrent,” she said.
“Bass is a great operator,” a well-positioned particular person with sturdy hyperlinks to Metropolis Corridor and Hollywood informed Deadline tonight. “She is aware of Wasserman goes to be an issue for her reelection, an issue for the Olympics, so she made her transfer. It’s as much as the board once more subsequent, however how can he go on now ?”
Sports activities advertising and marketing and expertise company founder Wasserman left his firm, purchasers and enormous swaths of Hollywood aghast when a sequence of seemingly sordid and suggestive emails from 2003 between his then married self and Maxwell emerged on January 30 among the many hundreds of thousands of heavily-redacted pages and pictures on Epstein dumped out by the Division of Justice. As Wasserman ready to move to Italy for the opening of the XXV Winter Olympics Video games, his of us put out a rigorously crafted assertion insisting the exec was “terribly sorry for having any affiliation” with the 2019 useless by suicide Epstein and Maxwell.
Representatives for Wasserman had nothing to say tonight on Mayor Bass’ insistence that he resigned from LA28. Wasserman pal Governor Gavin Newsom has returned to California and appears prone to keep in touch with the LA28 chair, I hear.
With all that, as sturdy because the LA28 board assist was final week, Wasserman has been feeling the tide delivering latest days.
After weeks of insistence that he wouldn’t step away from his Wasserman group, whilst high purchasers liker Chappell Roan and soccer icon Abby Wambach left, Wasserman introduced late on February 13 that he’s promoting his stake in his personal firm. Amidst guarantees to give attention to LA28, Wasserman couldn’t keep away from echoing the language of the likes of mayoral candidate and Metropolis Council member Nithya Raman and others, and pledge to not be a “distraction” resulting from his look within the poisonous Epstein Recordsdata.
Funding agency Windfall Fairness Companions, Wasserman’s largest backer, watched the consumer exodus and agent rumblings with trepidation earlier than lastly final week telling the exec, holds a 40% stake within the firm baring his well-known title, it was time to go.
Out and about over NBA All-Star weekend in LA the previous few days, Wasserman has additionally needed to step again from different public occasions resulting from his Epstein and Maxwell hyperlinks. His standing at a February 26 gathering with LA28 board member and ex-LA Lakers proprietor Jeanie Bass is unclear proper now, as organizers search to search out an exit technique.
At a costing of over $7 billion and rising, and deeply reliant on funding from Trump and the feds, LA’s third Summer season Olympics will happen from July 14-30, 2028 — with or with out Casey Wasserman or Karen Bass.
