WASHINGTON (AP) — Trayon White came up in local politics as a direct protege of iconic and infamous former Mayor Marion Barry. Now the D.C. councilmember is openly channeling his mentor's defiant, populist playbook as he fights for survival in the face of a corruption trial and a looming vote by his own peers to kick him off the council.
White, 40, was arrested by the FBI last August on charges of taking tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to influence city contract decisions. His federal trial won't start until January 2026, but preliminary evidence shows White pocketing cash-stuffed envelopes from a city contractor-turned-informer.
In true Barry style, the arrest and strength of evidence did little to dent his popularity; he was reelected to a third term less than three months later with limited opposition. Now White faces an internal council vote to remove him from office. Expulsion would require votes from 11 of the 12 remaining D.C. Council members. Based on public statements from his peers, White's prospects look dim.
"This is quintessential corruption,” Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said in a December statement. “There is only one remedy: to remove the corruption from our body. This incident has damaged the public trust necessary for government to function well.”
It would be the first time in modern D.C. history that the council has expelled one of its own members. Most recently in 2019, former councilmember Jack Evans — facing multiple charges of ethics violations — resigned ahead of an expulsion vote. But White seems determined to force a vote.
White has remained defiant from the start. He refused to cooperate with an internal council inquiry that ended up recommending his expulsion and sat silently in the audience, flanked by vocal supporters, at a council hearing on the issue last week.
Even before his legal troubles White was closely associated with the Barry legacy, frequently appearing at his side later in his life. White represents Ward 8 — D.C.'s poorest and Blackest district — in the seat Barry held for years. In 2018, when a statue of Barry was erected outside the D.C. government building, White went on local radio to defend Barry's legacy against critics.
As a councilmember, White channeled Barry's street-level style — building loyalty by personally appearing throughout his ward, especially at crime scenes, at all hours of the day.
“He was trained by Barry, and Barry would do that. He would show up for everything from a birthday or a barbecue to a shooting scene,” said Robinson Woodward-Burns, a political science professor at Washington's Howard University.
Since White's arrest, those parallels have only gotten stronger. His lawyer, Frederick D. Cooke Jr., also served as Barry's defense attorney. And White has sought to stoke lingering suspicion of the FBI among Black Washingtonians, many of whom believe Barry was unfairly targeted by the 1990 FBI sting that caught him on camera smoking crack cocaine.
White showed up at last week's hearing wearing a T-shirt that declared “THE FBI KILLED FRED HAMPTON" — a reference to the Illinois Black Panther Party leader who was killed during a police raid in 1969.
And in true Barry fashion, arrest and public scandal may not be the end of White's political career. Even if he is expelled, White is free to enter the special election that would be called to fill his seat as long as he hasn't been convicted of a felony. His trial starts next year.
George Musgrove, author of " Chocolate City, A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital," believes White is making a "false comparison" in wrapping himself in the Barry legacy.
For starters, Musgrove said, Barry boasted a legitimate pre-politics resume as a pioneering civil rights activist — serving as the first chairman of the seminal Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee before coming to Washington in 1965 to run the local SNCC office. And as mayor, Barry is regarded as having enriched and elevated other Black residents, and partially credited with helping create the robust Black middle class that populates the D.C. area.
“Trayon wants to play that role, but he’s never built up that history,” said Musgrove, a history professor at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “So that goodwill is only going to stretch so far.”
Nevertheless, Musgrove thinks White would have a decent chance of regaining his seat in a special election. In a ward where voter turnout in a nonpresidential election year usually hovers in the teens, he said it would take a strong candidate with broad coalition support to challenge White's organized loyalists.
“What he learned from Barry is how to cultivate a relatively small but pretty fervent electoral base in a low-turnout ward,” Musgrove said. “He only has to mobilize a couple thousand people.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Credit: AP