On a summer day two years ago, D.C. Council member Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8) climbed into a businessman’s car to concoct what federal prosecutors allege was an elaborate pay-to-play contracting scheme.
First, though, the lawmaker wanted to vent about D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), unaware that a video camera planted by FBI agents was capturing his every word.
White railed against the mayor’s team for relocating 75 of his constituents — all displaced by a fire — to a hotel that the city was using as a “migrant shelter” with “dirty” beds, “no toilet paper, no towels, no washcloths, holes in the ceiling, blood on the bed.”
“I’m trying to work with the mayor, trying to be collegial,” White said on the video. “But she don’t care about poor people or Black people, bro. … You wouldn’t put your family in there.”
The moment is among the 87 minutes of secretly recorded footage that federal prosecutors introduced as evidence and made available to the public this week as they seek to persuade a jury that White took $35,000 in cash bribes in exchange for using his office to push D.C. officials to extend the businessman’s anti-violence contracts.
The videos show the businessman, Allieu Kamara, who was serving as an FBI informant, handing White envelopes purportedly filled with cash at four separate meetings as the two men discussed a plan that prosecutors say was to pay the council member $156,000.
White, 42, in his third term representing the city’s poorest ward in Southeast Washington, has denied the charge. His defense team contends that he is the victim of government entrapment and has sought to taint Kamara as a “snitch” who cooperated with the FBI as part of a plea deal after his own arrest on criminal charges.
Over the course of five meetings from June to August 2024, the videos show White and Kamara bantering about a range of subjects, from the city’s political landscape to the council member’s views of Bowser and her anti-crime efforts.
They also spoke about how White could help influence D.C. officials to renew contracts with Life Deeds, the company Kamara founded in 2009 that the city retained to reduce violence in crime-riddled neighborhoods.
Gary Kohlman, White’s attorney, said during his opening statement that the council member is Kamara’s “brother-in-law,” a claim that the businessman denied in court Wednesday, echoing what he had told The Washington Post during a phone call the previous day.
Yet, their easy chatter, as captured in the videos, makes clear that the two men were well-acquainted and appeared to regard each other with affection.
“Love you, bro,” White said as they ended their meeting on June 26, 2024, according to the video.
“Love you, too,” Kamara responded.
‘I’m bankrupt’
Seated in Kamara’s car during each meeting, the men talked in detail about Life Deeds’s expiring contracts and who on Bowser’s team could help renew the agreements. They contemplated other potential sources of income, including mental health services and federal contracts.
“That’s a cash cow,” White said at one point.
The videos offer an unfiltered glimpse into White’s mindset as he contended with the pressures of his job, the difficulties of managing his staff, a marriage that he described as “on the rocks,” and the grind of presiding over a ward with a history of violence.
At one point during their July 17, 2024, meeting, White told Kamara that he had to cut short a session with his therapist that morning — “She was trying to help me out with my relationship,” he said — because he needed to meet with young inmates at the D.C. jail “to stop the violence.
“I deal with so much drama and craziness all day,” White said, according to the video. “Man, I can’t even focus.”
At another point, after attending yet another funeral for a young victim of violence, White told Kamara that his therapist helped him “process my emotions without ignoring it.”
“I’ve been going through it so long,” he said. “I learned how to block it out, but it plays out in different ways, especially in my relationships.”
A subject that White raised several times during the meetings was his depleted finances.
“I’m bankrupt,” he told Kamara, bemoaning the cash he hands out to needy constituents “every day,” as well as the cost of his active social life. “Seeing all these girls, having all this fun, that s— is expensive.”
Referring to Navy Yard, the posh neighborhood where he rented an apartment in a luxury building while separated from his wife, White described it as “sin city” and said it was populated by “freaks, broads, money, girls.”
“It’s all single women and dogs,” he said, describing a tableau of “60 girls on the roof on their laptops working” and how he tried to resist the temptation of going to parties with “free food, drinks, all day.”
“I don’t want to be distracted because I might not go to work,” White said. “I’ll be having to get away.”
Kamara responded that the council member should let him know about the next party.
‘If we lock eyes’
Running for reelection at the time of the meetings, a race he would win despite his arrest, White told Kamara that he was considering his future and was eager to devise a post-politics plan to “bring a stream of income in every month.”
In the short-term, he said he was focused on helping Kamara, who, in return, promised the council member a 3 percent cut of the value of any city contract he helped him procure, according to the videos.
During their first meeting, after Kamara told him he needed help extending his existing contracts, according to the videos, White promised to talk to key players in the Bowser administration, including Deputy Mayor Lindsey Appiah and Kwelli Sneed, then the acting director of the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (ONSE).
At their second meeting a couple of weeks later, White said he told city officials that ending Life Deeds’s contracts “is going to break the fabric of the community because everything is based on relationships.”
He also told Kamara that he would convey to Sneed that she had to support Life Deeds if she wanted the council member’s vote to become ONSE’s permanent director, a position that requires council confirmation.
“I want to go talk to her and tell her I can be supportive if this, this, and this,” he said. “I’m going to tell her I don’t know how much I can be supportive if that don’t happen.”
At one point, after Kamara told him he could bring him more cash that day, White replied, “Yeah, I’m hurting. I’ve been hurting for a minute.”
After Kamara returned with another envelope, White told him that he was fully committed to helping him. “I’m on top of all,” White said. “Once you get me — if we lock eyes and get your understanding, I get to work.”
“Just let me know how much you need, so I’ll be ready,” Kamara said.
‘Too much juice’
At their third meeting, eight days later, White boasted that the mayor had asked him to recommend someone to take over ONSE. He also recalled what he said when Bowser told him the administration wanted to “start over” with its violence prevention program.
“I told the mayor, with all due respect, I said, ‘That’s stupid,’” White said, according to the video. He added that he also told Bowser that she “needed to stop saying that crime was down” when violence remained rampant in his ward.
“I’m going to say, ‘Yeah, crime is down, down the street,” White said.
The mayor, he told Kamara, asked him “how can we hire you so you can help us with some of this work,” apparently alluding to violence prevention. White said he told her that he wasn’t interested in joining her team but that he would share his guidance with the administration “because I’m an expert in this work.”
Susana Castillo, the mayor’s spokesperson, declined to comment on White’s remarks.
When Kamara asked if Bowser would seek another term, White predicted she would not. The businessman asked if White would run to succeed her. White, who finished in a distant third place when he ran against the mayor in 2022, said he didn’t know and that he was focused on his current reelection race.
“I feel like I’m running every year,” White said, adding that he was intent on remaining an influence no matter his future course. “We got too much political power right now and too much juice not to be involved.”
‘Put your hands up’
As they began their fourth meeting, White told Kamara that he had ordered his council staff to reapply for their jobs as he prepared to start another term. He then laughed as he described his aides openly complaining about him on a group text in which he participates.
“What’s wrong with Black people, man?” White said. “Talking crazy about me.”
After White updated Kamara about his most recent discussions with Appiah and Sneed, the businessman handed him another envelope.
“Appreciate it,” the council member said.
The men met for the last time nine days later, Aug. 18, 2024, at the start of which White climbed into Kamara’s car and told Kamara about his involvement in a potential North Carolina land deal that required him to invest money.
Kamara said he could give White more cash once Life Deeds’s contracts were renewed.
They chattered about all the city and federal contracts that could be in their future.
“Let’s get on it,” Kamara said. He promised to bring him more cash in the coming days.
“Is that cool?” the businessman asked.
“That’s great,” White replied. “If you could give me something next week, that’ll be cool.”
As their meeting ended and he got out of the car, White said he and Kamara should take a trip together to Colombia or the Dominican Republic.
“Let me know, man,” Kamara said.
Just then, sirens could be heard.
“Put your hands up!” a law enforcement officer shouted at White off camera.
“Put them on the door right now! Turn around!”
As the council member complied, the officer ordered White to his knees and to place his hands behind his back.
“Oh s—,” Kamara said, still behind the wheel of his car, as the video camera shut off.
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