D.C. Mayor Vince Gray has called for immediate background checks of political appointees at all levels of the city government — whether they were made by him or previous administrations. “While a vetting process was implemented, it is clear that the approach was not thorough enough to address all relevant issues and questions for Excepted Service appointments,” Gray said in a statement. “Moving forward, I want to make sure that we check and double-check all current and future Excepted Service appointees by also engaging our own Metropolitan Police Department.”
Over the past two weeks, Gray has had to address appointments of mid- and upper-level city employees with questionable backgrounds. A spokeswoman for Gray said by including the police department in background checks for appointees, the mayor is taking an “unprecedented” step.
