Jury deliberations are expected to begin Wednesday in the bribery trial of D.C. Council member Trayon White after both sides delivered their closing arguments Tuesday.
White stands accused of accepting cash bribes from a D.C. government contractor in exchange for agreeing to help him continue to secure lucrative city work.
The Democrat, who represents Ward 8, has maintained his innocence throughout the trial. His defense team does not deny that White accepted the cash, but the jury will soon determine whether the council member agreed to improperly use his position in exchange for money and intended to be influenced by the man who paid him.
Prosecutors argued Tuesday that the case was open and shut.
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White “sold his position, his power, his access for his own personal greed,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Ross.
The defense, however, said prosecutors had not done enough to prove that White acted or intended to act corruptly as part of the bribery charge.
“There is no evidence Trayon White has done a corrupt thing, then or ever,” said Gary Kohlman, one of White’s attorneys, in his closing argument.
The outcome of deliberations will indelibly shape White’s future, both personally and politically. If convicted, he faces prison time and would immediately become ineligible for public office in the District. If not convicted, his council colleagues could still vote to expel him if they agree he violated ethics rules.
Pressed on the matter at a news conference Monday, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) declined to comment on whether he would try to expel White again. After the council last voted to remove him in 2025, White was voted back into office in the special election convened to fill the vacant seat.
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Much of last week’s testimony focused on a series of videos that show White meeting with an associate named Allieu Kamara during the summer of 2024. Unbeknownst to the council member at the time, Kamara was working with the FBI and allowed authorities to secretly tape their conversations in his car.
Prosecutors used the videos and other evidence to paint White as cash-strapped and corrupt.
“You get to go inside that car and get a front-row seat to the defendant’s crime,” Ross told the jury Tuesday, calling the video evidence “indisputable.”
Prosecutors argue the corrupt relationship between Kamara and White dates to 2019, when Kamara allegedly bribed White in exchange for his help speaking with top city officials about a contract dispute he was having with the D.C. government. Kamara testified that White took the money and agreed to speak with D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and then-D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine in an effort to prevent the contract termination.
Prosecutors pointed out that in one of his recorded meetings with Kamara, White appeared to reference that situation, telling Kamara that his relationship with Racine was never the same after the pair discussed Kamara’s company, Life Deeds, and that the attorney general had stopped speaking with him.
Five years later, Kamara was arrested on charges of fraud and bribing a different D.C. official, counts to which he later pleaded guilty. He told the FBI about his relationship with White — and prosecutors promised him they would seek a lesser sentence in exchange for his cooperation with an ongoing investigation into White, Kamara and an involved FBI agent testified last week.
In addition to repeatedly pocketing Kamara’s money, White told him he was going to “get to work” and set up meetings with various officials — assuring Kamara he “ain’t going to miss the mark,” Ross said.
And White tried to follow through on those promises, including when the lawmaker met with Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement Director Kwelli Sneed, Ross said.
Sneed testified that White had indeed reached out for that meeting, and that it occurred. But she said White only briefly brought up Life Deeds and quickly moved on after Sneed questioned why he was interested in a company that worked outside his ward.
White later told Kamara in a recorded meeting that he could not speak as freely as he wanted to with Sneed because another person was in the room.
Ross argued that this was evidence of White’s intention — and that the council member was guilty of bribery regardless of whether he succeeded in getting Sneed to extend Kamara’s contracts.
The defense argued that White never intended to follow through on what he told Kamara.
Kohlman pointed out instances in which White told Kamara on video that he had met with Racine or D.C. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Lindsey Appiah regarding matters related to Kamara’s contracts. Neither official said they could recall such meetings with White during their testimonies. And Sneed testified that White had never actually pressured her to extend contracts for Kamara’s companies, Kolhman said.
White “had no intent other than to look into the status of the contracts,” an action that does not rise to the level of bribery, Kohlman said.
Kohlman also urged jurors to question what Kamara, whom he called a “serial criminal,” said during his testimony. Potentially facing decades in prison, Kamara was “drowning,” and his only choice was to “reach out, grab Mr. White, and drown him instead,” Kohlman said.
While White’s defense attorneys in earlier statements alleged that the government had, through its sting operation with Kamara, possibly induced White to commit a crime he otherwise would not have, they opted against pursuing that argument before the jury on Tuesday. Instead, Kohlman offered a full-throated assertion that there was no crime at all, telling jurors: “There was no offense.”
White opted not to testify, as is his right. But he did speak publicly in a different setting on Tuesday, appearing on Zoom toward the end of the D.C. Council’s breakfast meeting during a break in court proceedings. White was seen on screen from the Wilson Building as he walked around the courthouse and settled for lunch in the cafeteria.
At one point, during a discussion about opioid-related services, White asked the group who currently had a contract with the D.C. government to do that work in Ward 8.
Then — never mind.
“I don’t want to talk about contractors right now,” he said, with a laugh.
Martin Austermuhle contributed to this report.
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