DC Councilman Caught on Tape Stuffing $15,000 Cash Into His Jacket

Trayon White, the D.C. councilmember his colleagues voted unanimously to oust after his arrest, is on trial for bribery. [S2] He is accused of taking cash from a businessman in exchange for help landing city contracts, and prosecutors have him on video doing it. [S1][S2]

PROOF

White "was charged with a single count of felony bribery after allegations that he accepted cash payments with the intent to influence and extend government contracts using his position as a councilmember." [S1] He has pleaded not guilty. [S1]

The government's central witness is Allieu Kamara, a D.C. businessman who "testified that he gave White tens of thousands of dollars with promises of hundreds of thousands more if the councilman helped Kamara's companies get D.C. government contracts." [S1] Kamara ran the city's violence interruption programs until his company "lost its contracts because he had falsified background checks," and, facing his own federal case, he "began to work with the FBI to get a lighter sentence." [S1]

Jurors saw surveillance video of "a meeting in Kamara's car on June 6, 2024." [S1] In it, White "was seen taking an envelope with $15,000 in cash and putting it into the pocket of his suit jacket," and "Kamara then promised White similar payments every two weeks if White would help him get contracts." [S1] On July 17, 2024, another video shows Kamara "giving White 'an agreement' of what he needed White to do, and what White should receive in return." [S1] Kamara testified he offered White up to $156,000 total. [S1]

White was arrested on Aug. 18, 2024, "because of guidelines about elected officials and upcoming elections," on a charge that he "accepted $35,000 in bribes in exchange for pressuring D.C. employees to extend city contracts for violence intervention services." [S2] Authorities say they "secretly recorded conversations between White and an FBI informant who gave White the $35,000 in cash on four occasions." [S2] He is accused of "accepting cash from an associate in exchange for using his elected position to help extend city contracts for the associate's businesses." [S2]

PUBLIC OPINION

Deputy Mayor Lindsey Appeah testified it was "highly unusual for councilmember White to directly reach out about the status of contracts or grants to individual companies that the government did business with." [S1] Kamara, under oath, rejected any softer read of the money he's seen handing to White on camera, testifying it "was not a campaign donation, either – but a bribe." [S2]

BULLSHIT DEFENSE

White's lawyers say he "was simply checking on the status of contracts for someone he knew, performing what they called constituent service." [S1] They have also argued "there's no proof Kamara didn't owe White money from past dealings between the two men." [S2]

Neither claim explains an envelope of $15,000 going straight into White's jacket pocket on camera, or why a favor for a friend comes with a written agreement listing what the councilman gets back. The defense's own witnesses didn't help much: Emil Walker, a former violence-prevention supervisor White also contacted, said only when asked directly that White never told him to do anything illegal. [S1] The grants official at the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services said the same, that a councilmember calling about one company's contract had "never happened" to him before, even as he stopped short of saying White pressured him. [S2]

None of that touches the tape.