Overview
- A 14-person jury was seated after multi-day voir dire and prosecutors began opening statements Tuesday in the federal bribery case against Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White.
- Prosecutors say video and audio recordings show White accepted four cash payments totaling $35,000 in 2024 from a longtime associate who was working as an FBI cooperating witness.
- The government plans to call the informant, Allieu Kamara, and senior D.C. officials to show White used his office to push for the contractor’s city contracts and agreed to future kickbacks of roughly $156,000.
- White’s lawyers concede he took the cash but will argue the payments were not bribes, challenging the informant’s credibility and raising entrapment and gift defenses shaped by the Supreme Court’s narrowed bribery standard.
- If convicted White faces up to 15 years in prison and would immediately lose his council seat, which would trigger a Ward 8 special election and carry wider political consequences for D.C. governance.