Overview
- The federal trial is underway and the prosecution called businessman Allieu Kamara as a key witness who testified that he paid Trayon White $35,000 in 2024 and earlier cash in 2019 while secretly recording their talks.
- Prosecutors on Wednesday showed surveillance video from June 6, 2024 that appears to show White taking an envelope with $15,000 and played recordings and texts they say document an alleged pay‑to‑play arrangement.
- Kamara testified that a handwritten legal pad listed a 3 percent fee on multiple D.C. contracts that he valued at roughly $156,000 if White helped secure or preserve them.
- Kamara is cooperating with the FBI while awaiting sentencing in his own federal fraud case and the defense has aggressively attacked his credibility by pointing to his criminal past, memory gaps, unrecorded calls, and potential leniency from prosecutors.
- White’s lawyers say his contacts were constituent service or the result of entrapment, witnesses told jurors they were not asked to do anything illegal, and a conviction would carry up to 15 years in prison and immediate loss of his council seat.