On Tuesday, Representative Elise Stefanik issued a direct challenge to Governor Kathy Hochul regarding a controversial member of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team. This team member has previously expressed support for individuals convicted of murdering police officers.

Lumumba Bandele, a Black Nationalist, was appointed to the Committee on Community Organizing for Mamdani’s incoming administration. Bandele’s past allegiance with members of the Black Liberation Army, who were found guilty of killing law enforcement officers in the tristate area, has sparked significant controversy.

Stefanik, a Republican eyeing a gubernatorial run against Hochul in the upcoming election, was quick to criticize the appointment. She urged the Democratic governor to intervene and compel Mamdani to remove Bandele from his role.

“Kathy Hochul’s endorsed Mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, has chosen a man who supports the killers of law enforcement officers in New York and New Jersey for his transition team,” Stefanik stated to The Post.

“Mamdani’s vision for New York is becoming alarmingly clear, resembling a nightmare. Kathy Hochul must act immediately and demand Mamdani dismiss Lumumba Bandele from his transition team.”

Bandele, now of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, attended a rally pushing for Herman Bell’s release from prison in March 2018, according to the Workers World newspaper after Bell and two others lured two NYPD officers to a Harlem housing project and then gunned them down in 1971.

Bell was ultimately granted his freedom in 2018 after the parole board found he was reformed and remorseful over the sickening crime.

Bandele also mentioned how he met several times with Assata Shakur, who escaped from prison while serving a life sentence for killing a New Jersey cop and fled to Cuba, where she was granted political asylum.

He offered praise in a video earlier this month and talked about their longtime relationship.

Shakur, who died in September, shot and killed a New Jersey state trooper during a gunfight in 1973.

Bandele saluted Shakur and Bell on Veterans Day 2024 as among the “many soldiers that served valiantly in the people’s military to defend our communities.”

Mamdani’s transition campaign and Hochul’s office did not immediately reply to messages seeking comment.

A message was also not immediately returned by Bandele.

He is one of more than 400 community members and stakeholders to sit on 17 transition committees before Mamdani takes office in January.