D.C. Council votes unanimously to expel Trayon White over bribery charges

The D.C. Council voted unanimously Tuesday to expel Ward 8 Democrat Trayon White from office, making him the first member in modern history to be removed from the legislative body, after his colleagues said his federal bribery charges became a drain on public trust.

Chairman Phil Mendelson, at-large Democrat, called the vote after council members expressed concern that Mr. White damaged the council’s integrity by allegedly agreeing to pocket up to $156,000 in exchange for influencing government contracts.

“The genesis of this matter before us is an arrest for bribery in August,” Mr. Mendelson said in a short statement before the vote. “Bribery of elected officials is quintessential corruption. The public will not tolerate of us — of its elected officials — corruption. Therefore, we must act.”

The voting process took about 20 minutes.

Mr. White, who is perhaps best known nationally for his antisemitic remarks in 2018 about Jewish people controlling the weather, retreated to his office without comment immediately afterward.

He has maintained his innocence in the face of federal bribery charges.

Mr. White, 40, was arrested after prosecutors produced video and audio recordings allegedly capturing the council member pocketing $35,000 in cash while meeting with an FBI informant.

In exchange for taking the money, Mr. White is accused of agreeing to steer some of the city’s multimillion-dollar anti-violence grants to his preferred contractors.

Mr. White pleaded not guilty to the charges this fall. He is scheduled to go to trial in January 2026.

Council member Kenyan McDuffie, the at-large Independent who oversaw the ad hoc committee that investigated Mr. White, said the standards required to expel him are lower than the legal standards required in the judicial system.

“Proof beyond reasonable doubt is not required in this council proceeding,” Mr. McDuffie said. “The standard in this council proceeding was one of ‘substantial evidence.’”

In December, the ad hoc committee found “substantial evidence” to expel Mr. White, primarily based on charges in a federal criminal complaint.

Mr. White’s supporters, including Ward 8 resident Regina Pixley, 54, expressed dissatisfaction with the vote. She said the council should not have removed Mr. White while his case was ongoing and noted that families were being evicted and children were losing their lives in shootings during the three-month, $400,000 investigation.

Ms. Pixley said the council made no effort to visit Ward 8 to gauge how Mr. White’s constituents viewed the expulsion effort. Mr. White represented a part of the city in Southeast that has long struggled with crime and poverty.

She said she would back Mr. White in the special election.

“Of course I would vote for him,” Ward 8 resident Diana Robinson said. “He has done everything that we needed him to do. Not one of those people have ever come and knocked on [my door], even walked on my street, including the chairman, to say, ‘How do you feel?’”

Mr. White has not said whether he will run in the special election. A date has not been established. Mr. White cruised to a third term in November despite cratering donations to his campaign.

Mr. White is the first D.C. Council member to be removed by his colleagues.

Jack Evans was headed for a similar fate in 2020 after Metro transit investigators found he violated ethics codes by using his Ward 2 seat to help developers who hired his private consulting firm.

Mr. Evans resigned before the council could formally expel him.

During the expulsion hearing Tuesday, Mr. Mendelson noted that Mr. Evans was never criminally charged with bribery.

Mr. Mendelson said his path to becoming council chairman was paved with the 2012 bank fraud conviction of his predecessor, Kwame Brown.

Kwame Brown’s conviction was sandwiched between the high-profile convictions of former council members Harry Thomas Jr. and Michael Brown.

In 2012, Mr. Thomas was sentenced to two years in federal prison for embezzling taxpayer money. Michael Brown was behind bars for more than three years after his 2013 conviction for taking bribes to steer contracts.

The trio of scandals motivated the council to enact a law preventing convicted felons from serving on the legislative body.

Mr. White’s most loyal supporters who attended the expulsion hearing said the FBI set him up.

A box truck with a large digital screen parked outside the Wilson Building broadcast an image of Mr. White with the text “FBI Set Me Up.” Another image on the screen called Mr. Mendelson a racist and an “enemy to Ward 8.”

The reaction to the FBI investigation recalls a community response to former Mayor Marion Barry’s legal troubles.

Barry, whom Mr. White often described as his political mentor, accused an ex-girlfriend of conspiring with the FBI when he was caught smoking crack cocaine in a downtown hotel in 1990.

Barry escaped a jury trial with only a misdemeanor drug conviction and began an improbable comeback. He won a fourth term as mayor in 1994 and died while serving as the Ward 8 council member in 2014, two years before Mr. White took over the seat.

D.C. resident Robert Brannum, who sat in on the hearing, said he thinks Mr. White “wanted to make himself feel as if he is a martyr.”

Mr. Brannum said he understood Mr. White’s attempt to show some grit in the face of the unified effort to oust him, but his approach was misguided in light of the evidence of bribery.

“It’s good to be a fighter, but fighting sometimes also means you don’t swing,” Mr. Brannum said. “He swung, and he missed.”