Trayon White Sr. is still a DC Council member, seriously?

CALL it the “Saga of Trayon White Sr.” 

The DC Council has been considering since August how it should punish the Ward 8 legislator for his blatant violations of the legislature’s Code of Conduct and a variety of local laws. This week a special ad hoc committee unanimously recommended his expulsion.

Strangely, there must first be a public hearing, tentatively scheduled for Jan. 28, and only then a final vote, likely sometime in February, before he actually gets kicked out. That is six months or so after the offending behavior initially came to the public’s attention, via White’s arrest by the FBI and his subsequent indictment on a felony bribery charge. 

It’s bad enough that the actual criminal trial may not be held until January 2026. (My prediction is that eventually he is going to jail, even if he ultimately accepts a plea deal.)

However, District residents should not also have to wait months for closure around the issues related to White’s violation of local ethics rules and laws. They have already been forced to contend with the fact that an obviously corrupt member was allowed to run for reelection; given Ward 8’s electorate, facing only a white male Republican opponent virtually guaranteed White would win. 

Equally egregious, White has been permitted to attend council meetings and vote on critical social and financial public policies, including as recently as Tuesday during both the Committee of the Whole session and the final legislative meeting of Council Period 25.

That unmistakable farce has been enhanced by the reality that White, despite a recommendation of expulsion, will be sworn in on Jan. 2 to begin a third term. Later that day, he will be allowed to vote on the legislature’s organizational proposal, including committee assignments and leadership.

And giving me an even more nauseous headache is this: White, the violator of rules, will have the right to register his aye or nay for the rules that will govern members’ behavior during the next council. 

Folks, we’re all the way down the rabbit hole hanging out with the March Hare, dancing in chaos and madness.

When I asked DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson about the duplicity of the process, he said, “We are following our rules.”

Is it possible to change the rules? 

“We can’t change the rules in the middle of the game,” Mendelson told me. “That wouldn’t be fair.”

Is it fair to DC residents that their elected officials have failed to act swiftly and decisively to rid the government of someone charged with a major felony, who has refused multiple times to explain his behavior, and who continues to collect his publicly financed salary? 

When I pressed Mendelson about whether he intends to review the rules to prevent such a scenario in the future, he said, “We’ll certainly look at the rules but there has to be due process.”

I sense no conviction in his words. They were said probably to move me along so he could get to the next round of media questions.

Unsurprisingly, White’s fan base — the dozen or so Ward 8 residents who attended the ad hoc committee meeting on Monday, including Regina Pixley — compared the plight of their councilmember to that of President-elect Donald Trump. “What he did was more detrimental,” said Pixley, citing Trump’s 34 felony convictions and the finding of liability for sexual abuse in a civil case in New York City.

This tired argument — which boils down to “other pols have engaged in morally reprehensible behavior, so our elected representative should be given a pass” — is the result of poisonous, warped reasoning that has spread far and wide since the arrival of Donald Trump and his MAGA minions. 

Anyone interested in an honest and ethical government, District residents included, should feel compelled to push back against the normalization of corruption and destruction — a brand of which White has implicitly urged his supporters to embrace, without explaining to them why he sat in a car parked outside the luxury apartment building where he was living, taking envelopes of cash given by a briber in exchange for help in ensuring the briber’s government contracts were retained, while scheming about other places that could produce even more money ready for them to steal.

Fria Moore, another White supporter with whom I spoke during Monday’s meeting, told me that the entire bribery thing was misunderstood. She argued that White told the FBI informant that it wasn’t necessary to offer anything in order to receive his help. 

“[White] wasn’t looking for money,” said Moore. White and the briber were friends, she said; the money provided was because the briber knew of White’s financial problems.

“[White] was set up,” Moore added.

That predictable defense has been used since that August day when the FBI showed up at his door after recording White accepting the cash-stuffed envelopes from the friend White’s kids reportedly called “uncle” turned FBI informant. At one point, White asked for more money, which, in my view, slays that entire set-me-up defense. 

Truth be told, many residents didn’t buy that unimaginative excuse in 1990 when then-Mayor Marion Barry used it after he was caught on tape smoking a crack pipe — and they aren’t buying it now.

Certainly, Robert Brannum, a former Ward 5 advisory neighborhood commissioner, is unsympathetic. 

He attended the ad hoc committee’s meeting on White and expressed support in writing for the councilmembers’ decision to recommend expulsion, asserting that the Ward 8 member “jeopardized the integrity of all District elected officials called to serve the public’s interest.”

“No person can read all the available information and not be dismayed, disappointed and saddened,” Brannum wrote in his statement.

Initially, it appeared the legislature would respond swiftly to White’s apparent breach of his oath of office. Mendelson established the ad hoc committee soon after White’s arrest, tapping Chair Pro Tempore Kenyan McDuffie to lead the group. 

Then things went awry. The council decided it wanted to hire a law firm to help the committee conduct its investigation. With a price tag of $400,000, Latham & Watkins was chosen in September and given up to 90 days to complete its probe and submit a report that included recommendations.

During its 11-week examination, the Latham & Watkins team interviewed individuals at multiple DC agencies including the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, and the Office of Risk Management; current and former members of White’s staff; persons in the violence intervention community; and others “believed to have information related to the allegations” against White.

The Ward 8 councilmember was invited at least twice to interview with the Latham & Watkins investigators. A letter was sent on Oct. 29 to his lawyer. The next day through his counsel White declined, “citing the pending criminal matter as precluding his participation,” according to the firm’s report.

On Nov. 18, additional correspondence went out to White’s counsel. “On November 22, 2024, counsel for Councilmember White declined this second interview request on behalf of his client,” according to Latham & Watkins.

The firm subsequently submitted its report on Dec. 11, finding “substantial evidence” in six instances of White violating council rules and District law. 

But for the byzantine process established by the council and the inexplicable distinction between the ad hoc committee and the full council, a formal vote to actually expel White could have been taken on Monday or even the next day during the council’s legislative meeting. After all, White has essentially refused on multiple occasions the due process that he was afforded.

However, the greatest justification for cutting to the chase comes from Latham & Watkins in its report: “While the investigation’s conclusions with respect to these provisions are based on the totality of the evidence considered, the investigation also finds that the substantial evidence of Councilmember White accepting cash payments from [the FBI informant] would alone be sufficient — without regard to subsequent efforts made by Councilmember White — to support a violation of these provisions. 

“Further, while the investigation considered the totality of evidence, the indictment alone would also provide substantial evidence that White violated these requirements. Cf. Brown v. Dep’t of Justice, 715 F.2d 662, 668 (D.C. Cir. 1983),” the report says. That ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit found that a grand jury indictment — even if it was based just on probable cause — “provided a sufficient basis for determining that an employee’s suspension was supported by substantial evidence, because the suspension was based on ‘the fact of indictment itself.’”

It’s time for the council to move to end this charade and expel White posthaste from the legislature. Failing to take such action is, in fact, unfair to District residents.