DC Councilman Trayon White will continue to represent Ward 8 after a decisive victory in Tuesday night’s election. His win, earned less than three months after he was arrested by the FBI and charged with bribery in connection with his dealings with the Council, raises questions. White has pleaded not guilty, but now that he’s back in office for another four-year term, what if he’s convicted?
White is expected in court on Nov. 13 for a status hearing. He will be represented by federal public defenders, after a shake up his defense team end of last month. But the road to a final verdict can be long.
What would it take to convict White?
Randall Eliason spent eight years in the Public Corruption and Fraud Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, serving as the Division Chief from 1999 to 2001. He now teaches a course on official crimes at George Washington. School of Law. Washingtonian asked for his help in breaking down the FBI’s case against White.
Simply put, the federal government’s “allegation that (White) took something of value — in this case, cash — in exchange for exercising his official authority in some way to benefit the bribe payer,” Eliason says, calling White’s a “classic” . official misconduct case.” Prosecutors say White took money from a confidential informant and agreed to pressure various government agencies to extend contracts in return. According to Eliason, “the evidence that he actually took money from this guy is going to be pretty overwhelming,” as the indictment includes photos of White allegedly accepting payment from the informant and screenshots of WhatsApp conversations between the two.
As such, prosecutors’ claim that White took bribes “will not necessarily be in dispute,” Eliason said. “That’s true in a lot of white-collar cases, because you have a paper trail.” However, White taking cash from the informant is not enough to convict him of bribery.
Eliason expects the precedent set by the 2016 Supreme Court case McDonnell v. United States to weigh heavily in the outcome of White’s trial. That ruling — which was handed down in favor of the defendant, former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell — “limited federal bribery statutes, including this one, to say that the government must prove that what the official did in exchange for the bribe was a — quote, unquote — ‘official act’”, in Eliason’s words.
Per McDonnell, arranging a meeting, talking to colleagues and other “routine actions that an official may take” do not qualify as official acts, Eliason said. “To be an official act, it must be something in which the public officer actually acts or decides on some particular question or matter that comes before him, which he has the power to settle.” For example, it may include making a grant or pressuring another elected official to advance a specific agenda.
Prosecutors’ evidence that White committed an official act in exchange for the bribe is “not overwhelming,” Eliason said. One allegation from the indictment that jumps out at him is that White told “Government Employee 3” (a high-ranking official at DC’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement) that he would not support their permanent appointment to their jobs unless they approved a contract between the informant’s company and ONSE.
“It has the potential to become an official act, because now he’s actually putting pressure on the person who has the power to decide to award the contract in a certain way,” according to Eliason. But he’s skeptical that other conduct cited by the indictment — such as White’s statement that he had “spoken with” representatives from ONSE and D.C.’s Department of Juvenile Rehabilitation Services about the informant’s contract — will face summons.
“Everything that is wrong or corrupt is not actually criminal,” says Eliason. “And I think the question of whether they can prove official documents is probably going to be the key issue in this case.”
What’s next for Ward 8?
As an incumbent Democrat running for office in the district in a presidential election year, White’s victory was more or less inevitable — he ended up securing about 84 percent of the vote in his race against Republican challenger Nate Derenge. “Because of that, not much energy was put into finding someone viable to run against him this time around,” says Washington City Paper political reporter Alex Koma.
Although White’s legal proceedings are ongoing, there is mounting pressure on the council to oust him sooner rather than later. According to Koma, “the council is realistic that they would much rather not have to take the vote to kick him out,” given enthusiastic support for White among a number of Ward 8 residents. “I think if they’re forced to, then they will to do it sometime in January or February,” says Koma.
Should White be removed from the council, a number of political figures in Ward 8 could be in the running to take his place. Salim Adofo, a representative on the 8C Neighborhood Advisory Commission, and Rahman Branch, the former executive director of the mayor’s Office of African American Affairs, both ran against White in the D.C. Council primary earlier this year. “They benefit from the fact that their names and faces have been on campaign signs and in mailings,” says Koma.
If Ward 8 were to find itself in need of new representation on the council, Koma says he wouldn’t count out a crowded race to fill it. “There hasn’t been an open-seat race — but an incumbent — since 2014, and whenever that happens, it saps interest, because a lot of good Democrats don’t want to pick another Democrat in the primary,” especially when it does. the incumbent’s fan base is as strong as White’s, according to Koma. “All the people who have been nervous and hoping he would decide to walk away, now they have a window.”
