Washington, D.C., councilman Trayon White (D.) was arrested Sunday on a bribery charge, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia announced, over allegations that he agreed to take cash payments in exchange for pressuring government employees to extend public-safety contracts with two firms.
White, who chairs the D.C. Council’s Committee on Recreation, Libraries, and Youth Affairs and oversees the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, allegedly sought a sum of $156,000 — three percent of total contract value — for his work. In its press release, the office of U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves noted that White’s alleged corruption was caught on film.
“According to the complaint, White’s agreement with a confidential human source (the owner of the companies) — including the source’s payments to White of $35,000 in cash on four separate occasions (June 26, July 17, July 25, and August 9, 2024_ and the source showing White a document reflecting how White’s three-percent cut was calculated based on those contracts — was captured on video,” the release reads.
Graves wrote in a statement that the time-sensitive nature of the case led his office to act quickly.
“Because the investigation into the alleged bribery scheme involved contracts that could soon be awarded and other potential official acts that could be taken, our Office took swift steps to address the alleged crimes we were investigating,” Graves said.
White is perhaps best known for a 2018 video he published in which he accused Jewish financiers of controlling the weather.
“Man, it just started snowing out of nowhere this morning, man,” White said. “Y’all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation. And D.C. keep talking about ‘we a resilient city.’ And that’s a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man. Be careful.”
When the Washington Post contacted him for comment after the video went up, he said “the video says what it says.” He later issued a statement apologizing for his remarks, saying he “did not intend to be anti-Semitic” and understood he “should not have said that after learning from [his] colleagues.”
White then went on a tour of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum that did not go as planned.
He asked whether Nazi soldiers were “protecting” a woman in a photo on display wearing a sign reading “I am a German girl and allowed myself to be defiled by a Jew.” When told that the Nazi soldiers were “marching her through,” he replied that “marching through is protecting.” He asked whether the Nazis were “actually manufacturing these weapons” when shown a photograph of German troops executing Catholic clergy, and an aide asked whether the Warsaw Ghetto could be described as “a gated community.”
White left the tour halfway through, and his guide found him outside the museum at the end of the tour. He did not explain why he exited early, but did have words to offer when asked whether he had reconsidered his previous statements.
“This opportunity has given me the chance to meet a lot of great Jews, a lot of people,” White said. “A lot of good Jews that I’ve never had the chance to meet before. It’s an awesome experience.”