Trayon White, a councilman in Washington, D.C., who represents Ward 8, is hardly the first member of the Council of the District of Columbia to be arrested on corruption charges. Nor will he be the last. The specifics of his case point to a larger national problem of deep corrupt links between the nonprofit sector and the Democratic Party. This corruption puts the lives of millions of people at greater risk.

Ward 8 is one of the poorest in the district, but White lives in a luxury apartment at the Navy Yard in Ward 6, which was where the FBI arrested him last Sunday. Authorities said White took $156,000 in bribes in five payments in exchange for awarding a $5.2 million “violence prevention” contract to a Washington nonprofit organization.