By Jay Sekulow
The left's outrage over the IRS turns to a plea to 'move on'
The brother of former D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown has pleaded guilty to bank fraud — the same charge that forced Kwame Brown to resign his seat.
The U.S. Attorney's Office says it has concluded its criminal investigation of former D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown's 2008 campaign.
The D.C. Democratic State Committee selected its chairwoman, Anita Bonds, to fill a vacant seat on the city's legislative body until a special election this spring.
The D.C. office of the inspector general says a former council member tried to get 10 traffic tickets voided last year by leveraging a law that exempts legislators from parking rules while on official business -- a common political perk that has led to confusion and abuse across the country.
U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. followed a public shaming of the former D.C. Council chairman this week with a vow to "ensure public trust" — a pledge sure to be tested as he resolves his probe into Mayor Vincent C. Gray's 2010 campaign, the last in a trio of investigations that blazed a path this year from city hall to the federal courthouse.
A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced former D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown to an afternoon in custody for lying on loan documents, making him the second city lawmaker to lose his liberty in front of the public he was elected to serve.
Voters in the District will decide Tuesday whether to reshape the D.C. Council in election contests that serve as a referendum on the makeup of a body that has faced a steady trickle of ethical problems in the past two years.
Federal prosecutors think former D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown should serve six days in jail and spend three years on probation for submitting false information on loan applications while he served as a city lawmaker, according to papers filed Thursday in federal court.
There's a perfect storm brewing over the District of Columbia, and it's name isn't Sandy.
Former D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown will have to adhere to a curfew and check in with federal court officials in person after failing to make three weekly required phone calls to the court — one of the conditions of his release prior to his sentencing for felony bank fraud next month.
D.C. lawmakers are heaping new bills onto an already deep pile of campaign-finance reforms on the agenda at city hall, creating what amounts to a smorgasbord of solutions aimed at restoring confidence in their scandal-tinged body.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said he wants to effectively and efficiently restore public support for the city's legislative body, even as lawmakers gird for a fight Wednesday over the best ways to mitigate the effects of potentially steep federal spending cuts next year.
Citing his "substantial assistance" to their ongoing investigation, federal prosecutors on Monday said they are not seeking prison time for an aide to Mayor Vincent C. Gray's 2010 campaign who admitted he paid a minor mayoral candidate with the hope he would stay in the race and bash incumbent Mayor Adrian M. Fenty.
A federal judge has pushed back the sentencing of former D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown to November so he can "complete his cooperation" with the U.S. Attorney's Office, according to documents filed in the case.
Activists hoping to ban direct corporate contributions to D.C. political campaigns are no longer trying to put their issue before voters in November so they can focus on preserving thousands of petition signatures they gathered earlier this year and make the ballot in a special election next spring.
Che Brown admitted in U.S. District Court Thursday that he claimed $35,000 in false income when he applied for a mortgage adjustment.
"I immediately did what my mother taught me," Brown told the court. "I admitted that I was wrong."
Brown sentenced to a day of custody, 6 months home detention →
