jonetta rose barras: Corrupting ethics and transparency in the DC government

When it comes to ethics, the DC Council appears to be going from bad to worse: Last year, it trashed local open meeting laws. After unanimously voting in February 2025 to expel Ward 8’s Trayon White Sr., the legislature permitted his unimpeded return to the chamber in August. Now there’s a vote coming up that would undermine long-standing disclosure requirements.

Lest anyone forget, White was indicted in 2024 on federal felony bribery charges for “corruptly” agreeing “to accept $156,000 in cash payments in exchange for using his position as a D.C. Councilmember to pressure government employees … to extend several D.C. contracts” under the city’s violence interrupters program. (There are videotapes of him shoving cash-stuffed envelopes into his jacket pocket, and there are transcripts of him asking the briber for more money.)

Serving as an abettor of unethical behavior and lax accountability, Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George — currently a mayoral candidate — administered the oath of office to White in January 2025, after he won the previous November general election. Lewis George took that action even though a criminal indictment had been filed against White by the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and an independent council investigation had found he had committed serious violations of the legislature’s rules. Never mind that the DC Office of Campaign Finance had issued multiple fines against White and his political committee. 

Incredibly, Ward 7’s Wendell Felder later ignored his own vote in favor of White’s expulsion — deciding in August to swear him back into office after he won a low-turnout special election, using the FBI-set-me-up defense that Marion Barry deployed in 1990 when he was caught smoking crack cocaine in a hotel room with a woman who wasn’t his wife. Barry eventually spent six months in a federal penitentiary.

Proving the presence of a multilayered crisis in ethics and morality in government — and maybe in some parts of the city — one of White’s opponents in that special election, Sheila Bunn, who had initially declared him unfit for a return to office, is now his chief of staff.

Have mercy!

White is scheduled to go on trial later this year. The U.S. attorney for DC, Jeanine Pirro, told reporters that she “can’t wait” to prosecute White. 

“I expect a conviction. I think the evidence is solid,” she added.

Meanwhile, White is being allowed to sit on the dais, introduce legislative proposals that could become law, and vote on matters fiscal and otherwise. The decision not to let him chair a committee is little solace for anyone truly concerned about ethics in government.

Now, Council Chair Phil Mendelson is compounding that insult. 

He recently introduced the Board of Ethics and Government Accountability Authority Clarification Amendment Act of 2025. A public hearing was held this week on the measure before the Committee of the Whole.

As written, the bill would block years of work by BEGA to enhance the city’s ethics enforcement. After surveying the agencies, boards and commissions that came under its financial disclosure requirements, the board decided to pull 47 additional entities under its umbrella. In 2024, BEGA finalized rules to implement the expansion it believed necessary. 

However, by May of last year, Mendelson was already trying to block those efforts. He succeeded in doing so temporarily, shepherding legislation through the council twice on an emergency basis.

If approved, the Clarification Act would permanently prevent the board from applying critical financial disclosure protocols to boards and commissions that “make decisions or participate substantially in areas of contracting, procurement, administration of grants or subsidies, developing policies, land use planning, inspecting, licensing, regulating, or auditing.”

Councilmembers and key staffers already file disclosure statements with BEGA. So why would Mendelson object to more people providing information that might allow the city’s chief ethics enforcers to proactively weed out potential conflicts of interest or, worse yet, opportunities for fraud or financial abuse? 

When I asked that question the day before the hearing, a spokesperson for his office told me via email that “various people from a couple of the volunteer advisory boards inquired about the issue.”

Translation: It’s election season — a time when the hunt for votes and money can lead to breathtaking levels of illogical behavior. 

That perception wasn’t altered as I listened to Mendelson’s questioning during the hearing, marked by obvious irritation and crafted to discredit BEGA’s effort, casting aspersion on the wisdom of the list of new disclosure filers. Why, he asked at one point, was the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, a regional entity, included? Ward 3 Councilmember Matt Frumin eventually offered an answer: It makes decisions involving hundreds of millions of DC taxpayer dollars.

In another instance, Mendelson, the leader of the legislative branch, seemingly sought to humiliate an expert public witness with “gotcha” questions. Kedric Payne, vice president, general counsel and senior director of ethics for the Campaign Legal Center, had come to provide testimony about the bill’s potential adverse impact on BEGA and to offer comparisons between DC and other governments around the issue of public disclosure. Mendelson peppered him with detailed questions as if he were cross-examining a hostile witness in court.

At Monday’s hearing, BEGA staff director Ashley Cooks told Mendelson and others what they already should know: “Financial disclosure requirements are not uncommon for board members and are standard among other jurisdictions,” she said, citing Prince George’s County, Baltimore and the state of Virginia as examples.

She urged the council not to approve the Clarification Amendment Act, as did Robert Brannum, a former Ward 5 advisory neighborhood commissioner and government employee who also has served on several boards. Chuck Thies, a longtime political consultant in DC, had a similar reaction when I spoke with him the day before the hearing. 

“No doubt it’s all about politics,” said Thies, noting that he was required to file financial disclosure forms when he served as communications director for Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray during his last term in office. 

“Mendelson is always talking about if the public can’t trust us, we can’t do our jobs,” continued Thies. “[But] transparency and open government are just words he says to appease; his actions are to the contrary.”

The legislation, as written, “restricts BEGA from responsible ethics oversight and holding accountable all District of Columbia employees, officers and elected officials,” said Brannum. 

Eric Jones, a vice president of government affairs at the Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington, said his organization supports the proposed measure and faulted BEGA’s implementation of disclosure requirements. He said a couple of his members had asked for waivers but been turned down by Cooks. He also argued that there was no guidance from BEGA on how non-government employees or volunteers were to complete the form. 

“While BEGA is falsely attempting to characterize this legislation as a means to restrict its ability to require oversight, that is not the case,” continued Jones, reinterpreting the purpose of the bill as an attempt “to hold BEGA accountable” for not engaging “in clear, ethical oversight through dialogue and feedback from the public”; failing to distribute appropriate forms for submitting information; and not “properly reviewing appeals and providing relevant feedback and opinions on submitted questions.”

I don’t find any of that when reading the bill. Rather, as Payne aptly observed, it is “an axe instead of a scalpel.” If there is dissatisfaction with BEGA’s expanded list or if a waiver process should be part of the regime, Mendelson could incorporate those instead of trying to kill BEGA’s effort to improve ethics enforcement. 

Cooks reminded the council that it created BEGA as an “independent agency with enforcement authority over a comprehensive code of conduct [that] would promote a culture of high ethical standards in District government in an effort to restore the public’s trust in its government, after misconduct allegations involving multiple public officials.”

She is presumably alluding to an intense four-year period during which the U.S. attorney for DC seemed to regularly investigate or haul away some District official for corrupt and criminal activity. In 2011, just after Gray’s mayoral win, federal prosecutors opened up a major investigation into evidence presented by a whistleblower of extensive campaign finance fraud. While several people in his inner circle either went to jail or negotiated plea agreements, Gray was never charged with wrongdoing.

In 2012, then-Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas was charged with stealing $350,000 of grant money earmarked for youth from underserved communities; he subsequently was sentenced to 38 months in federal prison. That same year then-Council Chair Kwame Brown was forced to resign from office after it was disclosed he falsified bank applications. Then, in June 2013, former at-large Councilmember Michael Brown (not related to Kwame) was charged with having accepted $55,000 in bribes while in office; he was also accused of having violated campaign finance laws. He was sentenced to 39 months in prison.

Mendelson was on the council during that dark era; he became chair because his colleagues and the public perceived him as squeaky clean. Given his actions over the past year, that may be a fading reputation.

Interestingly, as BEGA is being forced to defend its efforts to enhance ethics reforms, it is preparing for an “adversarial” hearing with White that has been scheduled for next month, according to an email I received from Cooks in reply to an inquiry I made.

He “faces three counts of failure to file full and complete financial disclosure statements,” Cooks wrote. “This is the only Code of Conduct violation that is at issue” in the upcoming proceeding.

BEGA also opened a separate case related to the federal bribery charge. Those proceedings are “stayed pending the outcome of the criminal matter,” Cooks said. 

Instead of trying to put the kibosh on BEGA, Mendelson might want to spend his time tightening ethics controls in the legislature and getting rid of corrupt members tainting the institution he leads.

jonetta rose barras is an author and DC-based freelance journalist, covering national and local issues. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.