Opening statements could begin as early as this week in the criminal trial of Ward 8 council member Trayon White, who stands accused of pocketing money from a D.C. contractor in exchange for attempting to steer city contracts in his favor.
It’s a trial with high personal stakes for White, who faces potential prison time if convicted — and high political stakes for the entire District.
White has represented the city’s poorest ward on the council since 2017. A ubiquitous community presence and self-described advocate for those left behind in traditional politics, the lawmaker has clung to a political career despite his legal troubles. He was expelled by his council colleagues following his 2024 criminal indictment, but he returned to the dais last year after winning less than a third of votes in a crowded, low-turnout special election to fill the vacant Ward 8 seat.
Now, his two-year legal saga will culminate in federal court, where in the coming days government prosecutors will present their case against White, and he will get the chance to defend himself.
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Here’s what you need to know.
What is White accused of?
Prosecutors allege that White repeatedly accepted money in exchange for promising to help a prolific D.C. government contractor secure continued business with the city, particularly in the area of violence interruption services.
The charges, laid out in a 30-page indictment, largely stem from a series of alleged meetings between White and a confidential informant, later identified as Allieu Kamara. Kamara was cooperating with authorities after pleading guilty to separate bribery and fraud charges, and the FBI surreptitiously recorded his meetings with White during the summer of 2024.
Kamara handed White $35,000 in cash over the course of those meetings, according to prosecutors. In exchange for the cash, prosecutors allege, White agreed to help Kamara maintain his government contracts, and the two discussed White getting kickbacks from Kamara’s future contract earnings, to the tune of more than $100,000.
White allegedly told Kamara that he was working to help him, meeting with various government officials at D.C.’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement and D.C.’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services about renewing Kamara’s various grants.
In the meetings, White also allegedly discussed future potential arrangements with Kamara involving contracts in the mental health space. “That shit a cash cow,” he told the informant, according to prosecutors.
What can we expect from White’s defense?
Last month, White’s defense attorneys did something interesting: They told the federal judge overseeing the trial that they wouldn’t contest the government’s allegations that White had taken and kept the cash from Kamara. (The exchanges were caught on video, so fighting them would have been a challenge.)
But what they will be fighting is prosecutors’ claims that the money actually constituted a bribe. And for that, the case of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell will be particularly helpful.
In 2014, McDonnell was convicted of charges related to him and his wife accepting $135,000 in gifts, loans, trips and other goods from a Virginia businessman. Two years later, though, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned McDonnell’s conviction, saying that the government had not proven that he’d taken official action in exchange for the gifts.
“The Supreme Court has narrowed the bribery statute and there’s got to be a quid pro quo,” said Erica Hashimoto, the director of the appellate litigation program at the Georgetown University Center.
Prosecutors have said White actively contacted and spoke with government officials on Kamara’s behalf, pushing them on the status of his contracts. But his defense team has directly challenged that claim.
“If the defendant did no more than seek information on the status of the informant’s contracts, he has not violated … the bribery statute,” the defense wrote in proposed jury instructions.
They also raised another possible defense: The money Kamara gave White wasn’t a bribe, but rather a legal gift of goodwill between friends.
A legal concept called entrapment could also factor into the trial. White’s attorneys have started preparing a claim that the FBI essentially set him up and induced him to commit a crime he would not have otherwise, writing in proposed jury instructions: “Mr. White asserts that he was entrapped by the government to commit the crime of bribery.”
Do White’s arguments stand a chance?
Peter Zeidenberg, a former public corruption prosecutor in D.C. who is now a partner at ArentFox Schiff, said that the Supreme Court’s ruling in the McDonnell case has made it more difficult to convict elected officials on bribery charges. But he added that the footage of White accepting the cash could be hard to overcome for the jury.
“When you have cash changing hands and it was videotaped, from a defense perspective, you’ve got a very difficult situation with a jury,” he said. “It doesn’t smell right. Nobody looks at that situation and thinks, ‘This is normal.’ A public official should not be getting cash from a constituent. What is he doing it for? It is a very problematic set of facts from a defense perspective.”
On the entrapment argument, Hashimoto says the claim could be buttressed by the fact that Kamara was working as a confidential informant for the FBI at the time that he allegedly bribed White.
“It does look like the government went after White and set him up, essentially, and jurors don’t always like that,” she said.
Still, claiming entrapment as a defense raises its own new risks, Zeidenberg said.
“That would put a burden on the defense to establish that the government overwhelmed his will by enticing him to do something he would not otherwise have done,” he said. “That opens up the door to other acts that might be admissible to show you’re a bad guy, you’ve done things like this before. That can be problematic.”
Who will testify?
The government anticipates it will call Kamara, the informant around which the case is built, as a witness. Several high-ranking D.C. officials are also expected to testify, including Lindsey Appiah, the deputy mayor for public safety and justice, and Kwelli Sneed, director of the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement.
White’s defense anticipates calling several witnesses to testify on the council member’s character, including his former council chief of staff Wanda Lockridge.
What happens if he’s convicted?
White faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. If found guilty, he will also immediately become ineligible for public office in D.C., and Ward 8 residents will elect a new lawmaker to represent them.
What happens if he’s acquitted?
If White is acquitted, his colleagues on the council will face the politically thorny question of whether to expel him again.
When lawmakers first voted to expel White, they said they could not abide by what they saw as clear evidence of serious misconduct. But they took heat from some civic leaders in Ward 8, who accused them of upending the will of voters before the justice system had its final say.
In the backdrop, of course, is also the Trump administration, which has been eager to flex its authority over the nation’s capital. Some political observers in D.C. fear that Trump or Congress may use White’s continued presence on the council to justify further federal intervention in local affairs.
How long is the trial expected to last?
In pretrial filings, prosecutors said they anticipate taking about five days to present their case against White. White’s attorneys say his defense will probably take one or two days. Then the jury will deliberate.
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