A federal court on Friday released a trove of previously unseen documents from prosecutors’ long-running investigation into D.C. political campaigns, including the closely scrutinized 2010 mayoral campaign of Vincent C. Gray.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that a key hurdle was the credibility of the central witness against Gray, businessman Jeffrey E. Thompson, who secretly funded a $653,000 “shadow campaign” on his behalf.
Gray has steadfastly denied wrongdoing, including knowledge of Thompson’s illegal spending, and is now seeking to reclaim the Ward 7 D.C. Council seat he held from 2004 to 2007.
The Post petitioned a judge in February to unseal the materials, which consist of roughly 90 files totaling hundreds of pages, arguing that there was no compelling justification to keep records secret after the probe was shut down. Summarized here are the most important revelations contained in those files.
KEY WITNESS CALLED THOMPSON’S PAYMENT A ‘LOAN’ — A key moment in the alleged “shadow campaign” conspiracy was a September 2010 meeting at the apartment of Jeanne Clarke Harris, a close associate of Thompson’s. There, according to charges filed against Thompson, Gray asked Thompson to fund a get-out-the-vote effort and presented him with a budget. But according to an affidavit filed last year in search of cellphone records, Harris told investigators that she understood that Thompson characterized the funds to be a loan. Had the case gone to trial, Gray’s attorneys would have highlighted that fact to argue that Gray assumed any spending by Thompson would be done legally.
INVESTIGATORS SEARCHED GRAY’S PERSONAL EMAIL ACCOUNT — After allegations of campaign wrongdoing accelerated in 2013, federal investigators sought and secured a warrant to to obtain copies of emails from Gray’s personal Yahoo! account — one that he used frequently during the course of the 2010 campaign. Later, authorities went back to a judge and asked them to expand the warrant, saying the emails previously disclosed “appeared to constitute evidence of various offenses” not encompassed in the earlier warrant. A person familiar with the investigation confirmed that Gray is the mayoral candidate discussed in the affidavit.
GRAY SAID TO HAVE OFFERED OPPONENT SUPPORT FOR COUNCIL SEAT — In the tight Democratic primary race, Gray was deeply concerned that fellow candidate Leo Alexander could draw votes away from him and ultimately cause him to lose the primary to incumbent Adrian M. Fenty. The Washington Post previously reported that Gray met with Alexander in August 2010 at a house in a Maryland suburb to discuss exiting the race. A court affidavit shows that Alexander then emailed Gray, recounting a series of job offers to be made in exchange for Alexander dropping out. The discussion, in Alexander’s account, went from Gray’s backing for a soon-to-be-vacant at-large D.C. Council seat, to a deputy mayorship, to a job at the D.C. Office of Cable Television. Alexander, in a telephone interview Friday, confirmed that he wrote the email and that he stands by the account.
GRAY SAID TO HAVE OFFERED $30,000 PAYMENT TO ALEXANDER; ‘I JUST WANT HIM OUT’ — Also at issue for Alexander, besides a job in the potential Gray administration, was cash to pay off his campaign debts. Alexander sought $50,000, according to Harris, but Gray told her that the campaign had only $20,000 immediately available, with another $10,000 possible. Gray, according to Harris, told her that he wanted Alexander to be paid through Harris because he “did not want publicity for their campaign report.” A $20,000 check was cut from the Gray campaign to Harris’s firm, as The Post previously reported. But Alexander rejected the deal, and Harris returned the check. Gray, according to Harris, said, “I just want him out.” Alexander said Friday that Harris’s account was substantially accurate; he had hoped to retire $40,000 to $50,000 worth of campaign debt, and “she came back with substantially less than that.”
THE ORIGIN OF ‘UNCLE EARL’ — When Thompson pleaded guilty in 2014, few details that emerged in court captured the imagination of observers as vividly as the secret code name Gray used for Thompson: “Uncle Earl.” A passage in an investigator’s affidavit describes the origin of the sobriquet.
FEDS SOUGHT CELLPHONE LOCATION RECORDS — To build their case, investigators sought location records for cellphones used by Thompson, Harris and Mark Long, who served as Gray’s driver. The request made to a federal judge in January 2015, as pressure mounted on then U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen Jr. to wrap up the case, indicates that the investigators were interested in bolstering the testimony of figures in the alleged conspiracy who had themselves admitted to felonies.
DID GRAY SEE THE SHADOW CAMPAIGN IN ACTION? — A key point in the case against Gray would be to establish that he had knowledge of the off-the-books campaign being waged on his behalf. According to previous Post reporting and court documents, workers for the “shadow campaign” and the legitimate Gray campaign worked side-by-side in the Gray’s official Sixth Street NW headquarters. Prosecutors believed that Gray might have witnessed a disturbance, previously described by The Post, that occurred a few days before the primary, when shadow campaign workers were not paid on time and then showed up at the headquarters demanding payment. Long told investigators that Gray was on the premises that night, and they in turn sought cellphone data to corroborate that account. Authorities told a judge that data could be “evidence of Gray’s exposure to Thompson-funded GOTV activities.”
THOMPSON’S NIECE TOLD ALL — In the earliest stages of the investigation, authorities relied heavily on the cooperation of Thompson’s niece, Bridgette Thompson, who served as her uncle’s secretary and not only had access to his personal and business records but also had participated in his straw-donor schemes. The Post previously reported that investigators leaned heavily on Bridgette Thompson, but a 2012 affidavit released Friday shows how thoroughly she laid out his illegal campaign-finance schemes and his efforts to obstruct justice — including the shredding of documents, the deletion of emails and discussions of spiriting her out of the country to avoid authorities. She is not named in the affidavit, but it describes “straw donations” that match donations in her name listed in public campaign finance records.
GRAY’S SON RECEIVED CAMPAIGN FUNDS FROM THOMPSON — In a court filing in a related case this week, prosecutors identified a “close relative” of Gray’s as receiving $10,000 from Thompson to pay Howard University students who had worked in support of the Gray campaign. A 2014 affidavit released Friday suggests that the relative is Gray’s son, Carlos Gray, who was a volunteer on his 2010 mayoral campaign. The Post previously reported on Carlos Gray’s efforts to get out the vote among public housing residents. The documents released Friday describe an episode precisely mirroring a payment described in the earlier filing, which was submitted in connection with the upcoming sentencing of “shadow campaign” official Vernon Hawkins. The payment went from Thompson to an unnamed person to Carlos Gray for distribution to the workers. Asked to comment on behalf of Carlos Gray, attorney Robert P. Trout said, “I have no comment, and neither does my client.”
FEDS SOUGHT EMAILS ON WASHINGTON TEACHERS’ UNION — The hundreds of pages of documents released Friday were carefully redacted to remove references to uncharged figures on the long-running investigation. But authorities did not redact one reference to the Washington Teachers’ Union and its former president, George Parker, in an application for a warrant to search Gray’s personal emails. That disclosure suggests that it was Parker who benefited from a secret $10,000 payment previously described in court documents — one made in November 2010 by Thompson at Gray’s request “in support of a candidate in a local labor union run-off election.” It is unclear whether such a payment would be illegal, but Thompson’s having made the payment at Gray’s request could have been used by prosecutors to show a quid pro quo relationship between the two men. Parker, who lost the election, said in an interview Friday that he requested a contribution from Gray but did not know that when it arrived, it had come from Thompson.
FEW WALLS BETWEEN THE TWO CAMPAIGNS — There was much more evidence of coordination between the aboveboard Gray for Mayor campaign and the under-the-table “shadow campaign” than the proximity of their headquarters. In an application for a warrant to search Google emails, prosecutors detailed several instances where the secret and legitimate campaigns appeared be commingled. In one case, the Gray for Mayor solicited a bid for a “predictive dialer” to be used in the closing days of the election, but it was the shadow campaign that ended up picking up the $1,540 tab. And after the primary, a key Gray for Mayor official included shadow campaign operatives among those receiving a thank-you note.