Mayor Bill de Blasio says he has retained a criminal defense lawyer to help him cooperate with state and federal probes into his fundraising.

According to the mayor’s office, city funds will not be used to pay his legal expenses.

The investigation, jointly run by the U.S. attorney’s office for New York’s Southern District and by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr., is examining de Blasio’s efforts to help Democrats win the state Senate in 2014 and whether donors to his campaign or the nonprofit received city benefits in exchange for donations.

Probers are seeking to investigate charges that team de Blasio sought to evade individual campaign limits of $10,300 by having donors make big donations to local county committees, which in turn earmarked and funneled the money to specific candidates. Such methods are against the law.

A flurry of subpoenas have been issued in the wide-ranging probe, which also includes investigations into those behind a push to ban horse drawn carriages in the city as well as corruption within the New York City Police Department.

De Blasio has not been accused of any wrongdoing and has said he and his team did not violate any campaign finance laws.

All this comes as the mayor’s press secretary, Karen Hinton, announced Thursday that she would be stepping down next month, less than a year on the job.

The mayor’s office said it will name a new press secretary in the near future. It emphasized that Hinton’s departure is not in any way connected to ongoing probe.

(AP)