The apparent missteps of a few members of the “Gray for Mayor” campaign and the transition that followed have kept Vince Gray swamped in scandal through the nearly eight months since he was sworn into the mayor’s office. Each time the scandals drip on Gray’s struggling administration, the same names reappear. Getting top billing is campaign worker Howard Brooks, accused of passing cash to mayoral candidate Sulaimon Brown. There’s also Lorraine Green, the “Gray for Mayor” chairwoman who Brown says also gave him cash. Green also appears to have helped coordinate hiring for the Gray administration, a process that ended in a nepotism scandal.
On Tuesday, Brooks and Reuben Charles — a top member of the “Gray for Mayor” finance committee — were back in the news as part of a Washington Post report that said Gray’s mayoral campaign accepted cash contributions above the legal limit and then tried to cover it up by exchanging the cash for money orders. Only a few weeks ago, The Washington Examiner reported that a grand jury is already probing the campaign.
