jonetta rose barras: The public should demand the retrial of Trayon White and his removal from the DC Council

DC residents who want an honest and ethical government should aggressively advocate for U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro to retry Ward 8 DC Councilmember Trayon White Sr. on federal bribery charges. Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras declared a mistrial in the case after the jury announced it could not reach a unanimous verdict. 

According to White’s lead attorney, nine of the jurors were prepared to acquit his client. The other three members of the majority-white jury held firm to their belief that he was guilty of the crime. 

Pirro immediately told the press that she intends to retry White, although some later questioned whether her office will end up doing so given the number of jurors in support of acquittal.

It is ironic, I know, that I would advocate for a person employed by Donald Trump’s U.S. Department of Justice to serve as the bulwark against government corruption. There are times, however, when the devil is called into service for good. This is one of those moments.

White’s council colleagues need not wait on Pirro. They should kick him out of the John A. Wilson Building a second time, and be prepared to go to court, if necessary, to defend their actions and the legislature’s reputation. They certainly should not allow him to sit on committees or chair one, as some are suggesting.

“His actions and continued disregard of ethics in public office embarrass the institution of the Council and disrespect the victims of crime who desperately need violence prevention programming in their communities,” Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen wrote in a prepared statement, correctly capturing the harm his Ward 8 colleague has caused. 

“He has also damaged the reputations of so many people who work tirelessly as violence interrupters — often at great personal risk — to end the epidemic of gun violence.

“Serving on the Council, chairing committees, and deciding how to spend public tax dollars are privileges, not rights,” added Allen.

Council Chair Phil Mendelson did not reply to my email requesting his comments about the legislature’s next step. However, he told other reporters that it is unlikely councilmembers will vote on a second expulsion at this time. His cautious, mealy-mouthed approach to resolving crucial issues does not serve DC’s more than 700,000 citizens well.

White and others, including some advocates for DC statehood, have attempted to make the case that refusing to find White guilty of receiving money with the intent to directly or indirectly help extend a contract for a local business person is somehow defending home rule or protecting Black people from an unjust system. That kind of propaganda is dangerous. It normalizes corrupt and corrupting behaviors by elected officials, who take an oath of office to abide by the laws of the country and the city.

In my lifetime, I have seen too many politicians like White who, seeking to maintain their positions of influence and power, deliberately camouflage or rationalize their misdeeds within the context of racial and/or socioeconomic discrimination, exploiting historic fears of Black and poor or working-class people while simultaneously constraining the ability of that same population to grow and prosper. 

It is not by happenstance that some communities in Ward 8 are the least developed in the city. The recent history of poor political representation, including that provided by White, has resulted in stagnation, thereby perpetuating the historical inequities. 

White declared that the FBI set him up for the same reason that DC’s four-term mayor, the late Marion Barry, asserted that the “bitch set me up.” However, the weak moral core of both politicians is what brought them legal scrutiny and public disgrace.

We, Black people, cannot be afraid to stand against corruption even when the perpetrators look like us and want us to remember every injustice except the ones exacted by them. In fact, the misconduct cuts deeper because it is a Judas-like betrayal.

I would offer the same admonishment to liberal or progressive whites who see themselves in solidarity with Black and Brown peoples.

Shouldn’t everyone — regardless of color — be enraged by the fact that White, with no prompting from admitted briber Allieu Kamara Jr., suggested that they head over to the mental health budget and raid its coffers after draining the violence interrupters program: “What I want you to start thinking about is how we get into the mental health space,” White told Kamara in a June 26, 2024, conversation caught on tape by the FBI. “Like there’s so much shit we be doing. That’s what I’m saying.”

Most of the people receiving government-financed mental health services in DC are poor, working-class people of color.

The full record of White’s behavior as an elected official proves to me that he is a career crook. 

Not only was he indicted for taking a bribe, but he also owes money to the DC government and has cost District taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars as agency managers have sought to enforce city laws. 

Staff for the DC Board of Ethics and Government Accountability (BEGA) sent out multiple notices to White in their effort to get him to comply with the law mandating that all DC government employees file accurate and complete financial disclosure reports. The agency held hearings, eventually issuing an order that included fines. White responded to those efforts with bogus arguments; he contended, for example, that there was no certainty he had received adequate and timely notices using the government email system. He also declared, according to a BEGA report, that “requiring him to file his financial disclosure reports while he is under criminal indictment stemming from alleged actions taken while he served on the Council implicates his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.”

The DC Office of Campaign Finance (OCF) spent an inordinate amount of money pursuing White after he failed to account for Fair Elections Program funds. 

The council spent $400,000 of public funds to conduct an independent investigation of White’s actions related to his August 2024 arrest by the FBI. That investigation, conducted by Latham & Watkins LLP, eventually persuaded his colleagues to unanimously vote to expel him in light of his multiple violations of DC’s ethics laws.

The FBI spent federal dollars in pursuit of the bribery case. It should be noted that, according to an FBI affidavit, White had previously accepted a bribe from Kamara to prevent the loss of a contract in 2020.

Equally disturbing, White and his cast of sycophants have, at times, used mafia-like tactics against companies operating in Ward 8, forcing them to pay what amounts to a ransom, or bribe, according to individuals who spoke to me with the understanding they would remain anonymous.

Raise your hand if you think, as I do, that it’s time White is made to pay the price for his fraud and deceit.

He didn’t pay it in 2022. That was when, as a mayoral candidate in the Democratic primary, he misappropriated nearly $59,000 of public money from the city’s Fair Elections Program, according to audits and a final order issued by OCF. The agency subsequently demanded repayment of those funds and issued $18,100 in fines to White and his campaign treasurer, Fria Moore.

Currently, White owes the DC government — the same government that he is charged with overseeing — a total of $77,006.29, according to Kamill Key, the public affairs manager for OCF. That debt does not include interest, although it should.

Adding insult to that injury is this: As a councilmember, White gets an annual salary of more than $167,000. He is taking taxpayers’ money every which way he can. No one is stopping him.

Interestingly, White and his colleagues will hold a public hearing later this month to discuss how to raise taxes on honest, hard-working DC residents. But they won’t collect money from the crook among them. 

BEGA fined him $900 for failing to file multiple mandated financial disclosure forms in 2024 and 2025. In the order, Norma Hutcheson, chair of BEGA, offered that the penalty could have been $5,000 per violation.

Why wasn’t it? It appears the board believed there was some merit to the Fifth Amendment argument.

Have mercy!

Unsurprisingly, White has sought to prevent the public from seeing the state of his finances. Pirro and her team made a fatal miscalculation when they agreed not to present evidence about the scope of White’s gambling debts. 

Ward 8 insiders have said he owes hundreds of thousands of dollars. He was recorded in FBI videos indicating to Kamara that he was severely strapped for cash. 

That kind of acknowledgement might have helped any confused jurors understand why White was stuffing money in the pockets of his jacket and giving Kamara the impression he would do his bidding. 

In round two, Pirro may want to put the gambling information back on the table. 

In the meantime, the council has what it needs. The Latham & Watkins report documents that White flagrantly broke the Code of Conduct, including provisions related to conflict of interest, use of the prestige of the office, and acceptance of gifts from outside sources. It was enough to merit the council’s February 2025 vote to expel White, and it’s enough now.

Allen cogently made the point that the hung jury in White’s bribery trial didn’t change “the fact that … White’s actions violated the Council’s Code of Conduct and the trust given to him by voters and his colleagues on the Council.”

But while Allen, like most if not all of his colleagues, seems content to wait on Pirro, I urge them to consider White’s oft-stated mantra: “Don’t just stand there, do something.”

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