DC Councilman Trayon White will continue to represent District 8 after a decisive victory in Tuesday night’s election. His victory, obtained less than three months after being arrested by the FBI and accused of bribery related to his relations in the Council, raises questions. White has pleaded not guilty, but now that he is back in office for another four-year term, what will happen if he is found guilty?

White is expected to appear in court on Nov. 13 for a status hearing. You will be represented by federal public defenders, after a reorganization in his defense team at the end of last month. But the road to a final verdict could be long.

What would it take to convict White?

Randall Eliason spent eight years working in the Public Corruption and Government Fraud section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, serving as division chief from 1999 to 2001. He now teaches a course on white collar crimes at the George Washington University School of Law. washingtonian He asked for their help in breaking the FBI’s case against White.

In simple terms, the federal government’s “allegation is that (White) took something of value – in this case, cash – in exchange for exercising his official powers in some way to benefit the payer of the bribe,” Eliason says, calling White as a “classic white-collar crime case.” Prosecutors say White took money from a confidential informant and agreed that, in exchange, he would pressure various government agencies to extend contracts. According to Eliason, “the evidence of that he actually took money from this guy will be quite overwhelming,” as the indictment includes photos of White allegedly accepting payment from the informant and screenshots of WhatsApp conversations between the two.

As such, the prosecution’s claim that White accepted bribe money is not “necessarily going to be in dispute,” Eliason says. “That’s true in many white-collar cases, because there are paper trails.” However, White accepting cash from the informant is not enough to convict him of bribery.

Eliason hopes for the precedent set by the 2016 Supreme Court case McDonnell v. United States weigh heavily on the outcome of White’s trial. That verdict, handed down in favor of the defendant, former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, “narrowed federal bribery statutes, including this one, to say that the government must show that what the official did in exchange for the bribe was, quote, unquote , —’official act’”, in the words of Eliason.

By McDonnell, Hosting a meeting, talking to colleagues and other “routine actions an official might perform” do not qualify as official acts, Eliason says. “To be an official act, it has to be something in which the public official actually acts or decides on a particular question or matter that is presented to him or her and that he or she has the power to resolve.” That could include, for example, offering a grant or pressuring another elected official to advance a specific agenda.

The prosecution’s evidence that White committed an official act in exchange for the bribe “is not overwhelming,” Eliason says. One allegation from the indictment that jumps out at you is that White told “Government Employee 3” (a high-ranking official in DC’s Office of Safety and Neighborhood Engagement) that he would not support his permanent appointment to his job if They didn’t approve. a contract between the informant’s company and the ONSE.

“That has the potential to be an official act, because now you’re actually putting pressure on the person who has that power to decide to award the contract in a certain way,” according to Eliason. But he is skeptical that other behavior cited in the indictment (for example, White’s statement that he had “spoken” to representatives of ONSE and the DC Department of Juvenile Rehabilitative Services about the informant’s contracts) holds true.

“Not everything that is wrong or corrupt is really criminal,” Eliason says. “And I think the question of whether they can prove official acts will probably end up being the key issue in this case.”

What’s next for District 8?

As a sitting Democrat running for office in the District during a presidential election year, White’s victory was more or less inevitable: He ultimately garnered about 84 percent of the vote in his race against his Republican rival, Nate Derenge. . “Because of that, not much energy was put into finding someone viable to compete against him this time,” he says. Washington City Newspaper Political journalist Alex Koma.

Although White’s legal proceedings are ongoing, there is growing pressure on the Council to oust him sooner rather than later. According to Koma, “the Council is realistic that they would prefer not to have to vote to expel him,” given the enthusiastic support for White among several District 8 residents. “I think if they are forced to do it, they will do it in January or February ”says Koma.

If White were removed from the Council, several District 8 political figures could compete to take his place. Salim Adofo, a representative of Neighborhood Advisory Commission 8C, and Rahman Branch, former executive director of the mayor’s Office of African American Affairs, vied with White in the D.C. Council primary earlier this year. “They benefit from the fact that their names and faces have appeared on campaign posters and in advertisements,” Koma says.

If District 8 needs new Council representation, Koma says he wouldn’t rule out a crowded race to fill it. “There hasn’t been a race for open seats, without an incumbent in the seat, since 2014, and every time that happens, it stifles interest, because a lot of good Democrats don’t want to elect another Democrat in the primary,” especially when La That starter’s fan base is as strong as White’s, according to Koma. “All those people who were nervously waiting for him to decide to leave now have a window.”