The committee looked at money orders drawn under the names of people with ties to Gray campaign consultant Howard L. Brooks. Brooks declined to be interviewed by the congressional panel, which also did not interview those whose names appeared on the money orders. The committee did not use subpoena power.
The committee interviewed several Gray campaign and administration staffers as well as Brown, according to the report. It said it based its conclusions on the interviews and on documents provided by the mayor’s office and the D.C. Council, which concluded its own investigation this summer. The report also said that the evidence must be weighed against the credibility of Brown, whom it described as having a “poor grasp of the facts.”
“While there is some circumstantial evidence that may support Brown’s allegations, including cell phone records, internal city e-mails, and copies of text messages between Brown [and the mayor and campaign staff], overall the evidence is insufficient to support Brown’s allegations” that he was promised a job, the report said.
Although the committee did not find conclusive evidence of such a promise, the report does not conclude that Brown’s claim was untrue.
Gray has denied the campaign made payments to Brown or asked him to attack Fenty. The mayor has said that Brown was told that he would get a job interview, not that he was promised a job.
The congressional report cited a D.C. Council contention that Brown effectively committed perjury by violating the District’s false-statements law on a job application. Brown, the report said, signed the application under oath saying he was not “given, transferred, promised, or paid any consideration for or in expectation or in hope of receiving assistance in securing” a position with D.C. government.
The D.C. Council investigation recommended that Brown be prosecuted for what the council thought to be false statements in his job application.
Brown has told The Post that the Gray campaign promised him a job and that the mayor was aware of that promise. Brown claims the payments from Gray’s campaign were aimed at keeping Brown’s financially strapped mayoral campaign afloat as a way to battle Fenty.
The House committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), launched its investigation in March after The Post published a story in which Brown alleged that the Gray campaign gave him payments and promised him a job for his attacks on Fenty. His claims also prompted investigations by the D.C. Council, the city’s Office of Campaign Finance, the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office.
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