D.C. Council member Trayon White’s long-awaited federal bribery trial begins Monday, as the Ward 8 Democrat looks to prove his innocence and keep his seat he has held for the past decade.
Mr. White, 42, is accused of agreeing to take up to $156,000 in cash in exchange for steering government contracts toward his preferred anti-violence organizations. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.
Jury selection is scheduled to take place Friday, with the trial slated to begin Monday.
The evidence is seemingly stacked against the council member. Federal investigators allegedly captured Mr. White pocketing cash-stuffed envelopes on video while meeting with a federal informant in 2024.
The affidavit said Mr. White took home $35,000 during four meetings with the informant between June and August of that year. The informant had already pleaded guilty to a role in the scheme while starting to assist the FBI’s probe of Mr. White.
While meeting with the informant, the filing said Mr. White talked about his influence over the council’s stances on anti-violence issues and how the pair’s bid-rigging partnership could branch out into the “mental health space.”
Mr. White, who represents a predominantly Black ward located east of the Anacostia River, has been defiant in the face of the criminal charges.
He won his reelection in 2024 despite campaign funding drying up amid the bribery allegations.
After being expelled from office by his D.C. Council colleagues in early 2025, Mr. White won a special election that summer to reclaim his seat. D.C. law bars only convicted criminals from running for office.
Mr. White has maintained he was the victim of a government hit job, appearing to channel his political mentor in former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry.
Barry famously exclaimed “B—— set me up” when he was caught smoking crack cocaine with an ex-girlfriend during an FBI sting in 1990. The former mayor faced a slew of serious charges in the case, but escaped his trial with one misdemeanor conviction and a six-month prison sentence.
The outcome spoke to Barry’s status as a D.C. icon. He was dubbed the District’s “Mayor for Life” by winning over White and Black residents and being elected to the city’s highest office four times — including in 1994, four years after his drug-laced legal saga. The former mayor died in 2014.
Mr. White, who was best known nationally for spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories prior to this trial, has tried to command that level of kinship among Washingtonians in two recent videos he’s posted to social media.
In an Aug. 19 post, he urged people to take their jury duty seriously to ensure there are fair trials in the District.
Mr. White was more explicit in the second video, posted Sept. 1, in which he advised Black residents to answer their jury summonses so he could have “a jury of my peers, that I have a fair trial and a fair shake.”
He mentioned a study that found only 22% of Black Washingtonians answer their jury summonses.
The videos enraged the Justice Department, which brought it to the court’s attention last week.
“The defendant makes a blatant attempt to tamper with the jury pool for his upcoming trial by appealing to race, making disparaging comments about the jury selection process, and inflammatory comments about a separate jury trial,” the DOJ wrote in a motion.
Mr. White’s attorneys shot back by saying the council member “was merely speaking about the duties of citizenship, and about having a fair cross-section of the community in the jury pool, upholding values of racial equality.”
The defense team added that it was unlikely the videos would influence the jury pool. Mr. White ultimately removed the Sept. 1 video.
The trial is expected to last up to two weeks.
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